About five months ago the Cameraventures team launched the #saveanalogcameras project to see if analogue photography is still alive among photographers and therefore understand their future.
During the data collection process, about 170 Portuguese photographers who still photograph with analog cameras were interviewed.
The analogue movement in Portugal has been growing in recent years and as such, it can be said that it “survived” through collectors of previous generations, who used in their childhood analog cameras and watched the transition from analog to digital.
The analogue movement in Portugal is very much alive, whether it is just because of trend or fashon, and its tendency is to grow. Through the results that we collected in the questionnaires, it was noted that more than 70% of the film users know between 1 to 12 people who have recently joined the analogue photography movement. What is even more interesting is that the rest of the respondents say they know between 12 and 50 people who are excited to know more about analogue photography.
Along with the growth of users, there is also a growth of service providers, who still sometimes can not handle the volume of customers that serve their service, which suggests that there is still room for new quality business around this movement.
Recently, in conversation with a manager of a store that develops, digitalizes, prints and sells film, he confessed that the volume of work that they have nowadays surpasses widely what he expected and that consequently he even had to extend the delivery times of the services of development and digitization, since the machines they own can not handle the quantity of service.
The increase of the volume of customers has increased exponentially in local stores, and this is due to two main factors: the withdrawal of customers from typical franchising stores where customer contact is not so personal, and in most cases, they have to send received orders outside to another company in order to carry out the film’s development, which results in longer deadlines and higher prices; and still; the quality of the services provided by these local shops, often managed by former photographers, born collectors with a vast knowledge of cameras and films, which conveys greater confidence when choosing film or gear.
By collecting these data, we can understand the future of the panorama of this movement in the Portugal, a movement that despite the break that seems to have suffered a few years ago is nowadays growing more and more, not only in terms of users but also in terms of the market, and for this service providers must realize the importance of providing quality service so they can grow, adopt, and fully support the growing analogue community in the country.
Author: Diogo Santos