> As Tapestry founder Mike Heudebourck candidly admits to BJP in this > week's profile of the leading London lab: "We've seen the volume of E6 > declining not because of the move to digital, but because there is less > work around." The clear implication is that the photographic processing > industry has been in denial, hoping that there is still plenty of work > out there if only the right (digital) services can be offered to win it > back. It now seems that this is simply not true. There is less > professional photography being commissioned, and less work going through > labs... > > Continued at: http://www.bjphoto.co.uk/comment.shtml>> > > Discuss.
Well, this has more or less been happening since 1839, you know. Always inroads being made on the pro's clientele...always amateurs skimming jobs...always undertrained and undercapitalized young pros undercutting prices. I don't know. Print advertising took a big hit around the time of the first gulf war. Stock photography is getting cheaper and more ubiquitous all the time--it was touted as the best way for beginning pros to make a living in the late '90s. E6 never accounted for more than a few percentage points of the total market anyway. And those are the users that are going digital. Etc. Maybe the article says something concrete about one lab in London, but I wonder if it's really wise to extrapolate the whole world from that limited data. --Mike
