The Whole Of The Moon

Morning folks - I've been thinking lately about what happens when we reach, say £10 for a 120 roll of FP4+. It's a frightening prospect isn't it? 

Though in reality we've been on £10 rolls of film for a while now, and I have started to ask myself what sort of justification both Kodak and Harman can make for, for instance:

TMY 400 - 120 Roll - on average £11

Ilford SFX 120 - on average £14.

You see, I understand costs have gone up - everything from energy to raw materials to wages - I do understand. 

However when you are pricing your main products (duh . . film) beyond the reach of a lot of people, then I think you need to sit down and have a rethink.

Frozen Out
Manufacturers Beware

I have recently been described as a "luxury photographer" in that I use film exclusively.

Well, I do.  

I get no enjoyment from digital, so I use film and I print it in my own darkroom. 

I'm also VERY fortunate, in that last year I was gifted a lot of outdated film and paper and I worked my way around its losses in speed and grade to produce very decent prints. 

I've printed more recently than I have ever printed purely because of that . . . and trying to produce 20x16" prints in a darkroom not much wider than the average understairs cupboard has been as much a challenge as it has been total fun. 

However, I haven't had to pay for this stuff - I have operated on a freebie basis all through the cost of living crisis - thanks to the extreme generosity of a friend.

The thing is though, now, rather than spending my pocket money on a nice new (old) camera or some useful filters, I am starting to think:

STOCK UP.

The one big thing the film I was gifted has shown me, is that despite all the online claims of being able to squeeze out something useful for ever, film will eventually 'go off'. 

I had some Tri-X that was so old that it was in a paper wrapper. It was fogged to feckery. 

Weirdly, TMY 400 which expired in 2009 was (and is) fine, but TMX 100 which expired in 1990 was pretty gubbed. 

Agfapan 25 from some very distant point in time was really fine, whereas Pan F, 10 years out, was fairly dull. 

When I am describing their states, I don't mean they're unusable, just that you couldn't use them for mission critical work. 

Stuff that is a few years out of date seems to be OK unless it is Ilford and then you might be struck by the dreaded mottle, which seems to strike completely randomly, even on film which expired in 2022! My own stock (roughly 100 sheets) of 2006 expired Kodak TXP320 which has been kept cool, is fine, but in the end I know entropy will get it.

A small part of it!

As for paper - Multigrade from over 10 or even 20 years ago, drops a couple of grades - yes, you can compensate, but I find myself regularly printing on Grade 3.5 or 4.5 and I'll tell you truthfully - it can be a complete fecker to deal with! 

Graded (such as Ilfospeed) seems to last a very long time indeed, as does a lot of old Agfa paper.

So why stock up?

Well, it ain't getting any cheaper. 

That's my entire argument. 

Nothing ever reduces in price. 

I remember when a roll of SFX was about £4 and it seemed extortionate then . . add on an extra tenner and I am glad I bought 20 rolls for £30 from the late-lamented Silverprint! It's all frozen too. 

There's a lot to be said for pleading with your partner for freezer space and filling a couple of clip-top hermetic boxes with film.

Paper though is a different matter, unless you can afford to run a small chest freezer, but even then, you can mitigate entropy in buying say Graded paper (if you can find it - Ilfospeed is being discontinued as we speak) and storing it as cool as you can. 

In the giftings I received last year, was a box of 12x16" Grade 2 Ilfospeed, "at least 10 years old" (actually, probably nearer to 20!) and it prints like a champ. 

Any loss of speed on a graded paper can be mitigrated by brewing your own Dr. Beers developer - that'll grab you at least another grade if you're careful.

So I think that is what I am going to do - take the defensive position. 

I really don't want to, but once I've retired I've got on average, what? about 20 years whist I can still be bothered to do any of this.

There's other casualties in the defensive mode too - I'm sorry for Kodak, because as a life-long Kodak user, I stopped using their film after the Alaris revamp simply because of their need to make money on the investment that buying a bankrupt company entails.

As you'll no doubt know Kodak film became almost entirely unaffordable overnight. And I now find myself driven the same way with their chemicals (indeed, if you can get them - Selenium seems to have been out of stock for a long time and the same with Polymax developer) they're pricing a loyal customer (and very regular user) out of the park! 

And I am not the only one.

I'm now finding myself in a similar situation with re-stocking photographic paper when this lot runs out. My dream of printing an archive of my 6x6 negatives at an image size of 8" x 8" on 9.5 x 12" FIBRE paper (it looks great) is fast disappearing down the swanny at a current cost for 50 sheets of somewhere in the mid-90 pounds (that's £95 for 50 sheets - yes you did read that right.)

If I wanted to do the same on Ilford's premium RC paper (Portfolio - it really IS lovely stuff and easy to use, but at the end of the day it is only a resin coated paper) then I would be exactly the same price. 

Portfolio in postcard size (10x15cm) is nearing £70 for 100 sheets!

Even a box of 100 sheets of bog standard 10x8" MG Fibre is around £130. 

You really DO NOT want to make any mistakes (surely the way that ALL beginnners learn) at £1.30 a sheet. 

Align that with:

"I have just cut a sheet of paper that cost £1.30 into quite a number of bits for test strips . . . GROAAAN!". 

And when you start thinking like that, you start (EVEN AS A PASSIONATE, EXPERIENCED AND COMMITTED DARKROOM WORKER) to think:

What the fuck is the point?

Trust me, the major producers are running a very tight line of:

Affordability vs. Fckck it, it's too expensive.

I would warrant that a lot of consistent Ilford (et al) shooters are of the, how shall we say, old git variety. 

You know, Mesdames et Messieurs like us. 

You started in 1970's or '80's and you still enjoy it. 

Maybe you have a darkroom, maybe you don't, but no matter what, the process of taking photographs is as much a part of you as breathing and no matter how advanced digital photography has come along, there's still nothing better than that release of the shutter, with some, but in reality little, idea of exactly how something is going to come out. 

You still buy film because you always have and you think you will, for as long as you can see clearly, and even then (like Bruce from T.O.D.) an autofocus Nikkor can help things along nicely.

In other words you are a KEY Ilford (et al) customer.

Yes, there's always the younger photographer . . the "Analog Revolution" (sic), but even then, factor in the cost of film against say, housing costs or trying to keep a young family above the tide line . . . well . . . see what I mean. 

The term Luxury Photographer has never been more apt.

For my own generation, despite what people think, we're really not all well off. 

Not by any means. 

A large chunk of us boomers are either on pensions or heading towards that phase of our lives on a lick and a promise - no tasty personal pension in place; maybe cut adrift from your work above the age of 60 and little chance of finding more because of the endemic ageism in society (it is there - trust me on that one too); on benefits or slipped between the cracks.

Yet there's one thing we want to do.

What's that Simpkins? C'mon lad, spit it out . . louder, so the whole class can hear you!

 

We want to take more pictures! 

And more importantly:

WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO TAKE MORE PICTURES.

I want to make more prints and I want to be able to afford that for as long as I am able to lift a Beard Easel, so it is really hard coming smack up against the profitability vs. affordability thing.

Mark my words, I reckon when we get to the £10 roll of FP4+ some people will throw in the towel. 

£100 for 10 rolls of film - CAN YOU IMAGINE????

Yes there is of course Foma and numerous fly-by-night names out there (operating at a price slightly below, but in reality not that much different from the big ones) and good luck to them, but the thing I have found, certainly with Foma film (not the chemicals or paper) is a bit of a lack of Quality Control. I remember walking for many miles, taking a 5x4 camera with me and DDS's with Foma 100, taking some pictures, developing them, only to discover the emulsion was scored and pock-marked. 

GREAT QC is why I like Ilford and why I liked Kodak. Although, then again look at the mottle issue.

Kentmere as an Ilford brand is top-notch stuff btw.

What I would say to all manufacturers of film and paper and chemicals is this:

PLEASE - YOU NEED US JUST LIKE WE NEED YOU. 

We your customers understand the costs, but you also have to understand our costs - the current inflationary position of the world hits both sides of the coin. 

If we can't afford to buy your products, then YOU DIE. 

It really is as simple as that. 

I would never have bothered normally
 but it was 'free' so why not?!

I have found myself perusing my old archives recently, chucking out tons of shitty prints and thinking, actually, is there any point to this other than I enjoy doing it? 

Will anything ever be left, or discovered down the line? 

I doubt it. 

So if that is the case, is there actually any point in me spending a VERY large part of my disposable income on something that is akin to a dead end? 

If it were cheaper, I'd think feck it and keep on!

But when you sit down and factor in a lovely 8x8" image on fibre 9.5 x 12" paper all toned and everything, and then add in the pre-parts of that:

Camera; film; time; chemicals for processing; storage; enlarger; lens and darkroom equipment; paper chemicals; and finally archival storage, I think you must be heading towards at the very least £6 a print! 

And when you get to that . . well. why not just go digital? It's a shitload cheaper!

But like I said I don't like digital, so when I get to the point where this is getting financially crippling I might start to think:

God that's a massive wall of unaffordability I am heading down this hill towards . . I'm going to put on the brakes now, jump out of this vehicle and head uphill to where the sun is shining and I can enjoy a bottle of wine without thinking, gosh, that was around the price of ONE print.

It is a sobering thought (or it should be if you're a consumables manufacturer) that even someone like me (a core customer) with two really great enlargers (a DeVere 504 and a Meopta Magnifax) a decent selection of great lenses and all the gear and the passion to use it, is starting to think twice,

Thinking that the financial viability of what is really just a hobby; certainly a pastime that I love, but a pastime all the same, is headed towards the shitter. 

I chanced upon a chat with the illustrator Keith Walker today - you'll not know him, but if you read Commando comic from around the number 500, you'll definitely know his work; he said:

"What could be cheaper than a pencil and a bit of paper?"

and he's absolutely right. 

When I was small my hobbies were drawing and calligraphy - they cost peanuts . . . I'd hate to say I can feel them coming on again, but being a creative person I have to do something. 

If this continues I can see that happening. 

Really!

Anyway, I know nobody "up top" will read this, but I think, as a community, we REALLY need to talk about it. 

It's simple - if people stop using film because it becomes too expensive and manufacturers find themselves in a vicious circle of lower production and higher prices, what happens to the value of say your M6, or your collection of working Barnacks, or your Hasselblads, or your superb (but dead-ended) specialist cameras like a Fuji or Linhof 6x17 pano? 

Even the plain-Jane K1000s or Nikon Fs? 

They'll just become worthless lumps of metal and glass consigned to display cabinets.

You're talking about the collapse of a (albeit small) part of a profound, life-changing art-form. Yeah the digital stuff will continue, but it ain't the same . . well it's not to me.

This is serious stuff.

It's worse than that though, because I think the traditional 'wet' darkroom will kick the bucket first. 

Darkroom-based photographic print-making is heading the same way as the Dodo. 

I can see it almost gone in 10 years time.

Who do you know that prints?

I go to a Photography Forum every month, and of the average of 20-25 regulars, there's about two of us. And if I can't afford to . . . . well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that one out . . .

I learned my craft on Ilfobrom and Kentmere Bromide (they were as cheap as chips) before heading up to the heady delights of Galerie. 

But even then with the incredible tutelage of Joe McKenzie I made a lot of mistakes. 

We all did. 

It was part of the learning curve, but the mistakes were affordable, not eye-watering. 

I was able to hone my craft at an early age on a student grant! 

It's been a gift that has repaid me in spades over the years, but I was only able to do it because the stuff was relatively cheap . . though still a (small) luxury!

Things have got to change before it really is too late.

Over and oot . . . you ain't seen me . . . right?

H xx