 "camera" clubs and digital
As a member of a club in Ottawa I've been following this thread with interest; a few local comments/observations:
Everyone is referring to the clubs as camera clubs, for some reason the one I belong has called itself for many years a photo club - doesn't mean there isn't a fair amount of gearheadery though!
The widespread marketing and adoption by consumers of digital cameras (and printers) has led to a significant increase in membership for the club I belong to - as in a more than 100% increase in the last 5 years or so. This is a good thing in general for the club even though it has certainly been accompanied by a large drop in the number of members using film.
We have a darkroom facility which remains active, it is used by about 15% of the membership which is a proportion that has been fairly steady as the club has grown. What's interesting is that it seems to be younger members (20-30) who are most active in the darkroom. A facility we have that seems to get very use now is our scanning room (film and flatbed scanners), probaly because the slide shooters have all bought dslr's. |