"It's a pretty good time for our wallets, at least for those who are careful with the money and tend to shoot a lot, because there are no more film, developing, and printing costs. Assuming you have the computer, the camera or camera-featured device, and a few cards, you'll pay the same to make 10 photographs or 10,000. (Don't quibble; that's not strictly true but it's essentially so.) "
Really??
I think the average transverse-peaked, baseball-capped hoolie who thinks holding a digital camera / smart phone at arms length to render an image of its spotty fizzog and posting the distorted result to his (or her) "followers" (or whatever) do us filmies a great service by proving that what they do has NOTHING to do with photography. At best, it's some narcissistic, pizza-faced oik / oikess wasting some of their mobile phone account tying up a few kb of storage on whatever mind-numbing social media site they and their like find "kool". (Can't you just tell I'm not a parent....??)
This is an amazing time for photography. We can buy great gear at a fraction of its original cost. Materials to develop and print (traditionally) or scan and print (digitally) are available readily and at reasonable cost - assuming we don't shoot our film at 5 frames per second in an attempt to play the percentages game.
Some disagree and are ready to throw in the towel because there isn't the same choice of media - maybe their favourite film is no longer available. I feel for them. Genuinely. However, as much as I enjoy having a bit of fun with a digital camera from time to time, it's candy-floss compared to a rib-eye steak, for me. I'll never be remotely as good a photographer as I'd like to be - and nowhere even close to those who I admire - but at least I can share some of their experience by using film.
In 20 years time, those who we currently hold as the truly great photographers will still be thought of as such. The vast majority of those digital photographers / digital artists who are popular today will have vanished.
