Dearth of film processing, continued

Joshua Trujillo, P-I photo.
Rolls of film are becoming a rare sight with the growing popularity of digital photography.

P-I reporter Dan Richman enlarged upon (Tuesday’s blog post) about Ivey Photo closing in Seattle. (Richman here)

He also provided an overview of the state of the industry, here.

Wikipedia logs in here.

Now the good news: contrary to predictions, film is not going away. The answer to its processing might be photographer cooperatives. There are always alternatives, and alternatives after those alternatives.

I’ll end with an old Alec Soth post: Now that’s what I call an alternative process:

The German physiologist Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (1837–1900) coined the term rhodopsin for the pigment that is responsible for both the formation of the photoreceptor cells and the first events in the perception of light.

In 1878 he did a fascinating experiment. He covered a rabbit’s head to allow the rhodopsin to accumulate in the rods. Then it was uncovered and positioned toward a barred window. After a three-minute exposure, the animal was decapitated and the eyeball removed. He then ‘fixed’ the retina with a solution to prevent it from being resynthesized. The next day, Kühne was able to see a picture of the window and bars printed upon the retina.

Regina Hackett