I attended a presentation this week to mark the 75th anniversary of Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society.  Looking through and handling a selection of prints from the club’s archives, it was impressive to witness the sheer darkroom print quality, together with the timeless look of many of the images, even though they were produced 50, 60, 70 years ago.

Some comments were made along the lines of “You can’t get that ‘real print’ quality with digital.”

It got me thinking that it’s quite a while since I actually printed any of my own images, either my glamour photography or my personal/family photos.  My images are stored on various hard-drives and discs, far removed from the traditional ‘photo album’ that I grew up with.

Apparently I’m not alone.  I read a statistic on the web from last year that 83% of digital photos remain in their digital form.  Only 17% of images are printed.  People are sharing images in other ways, including email, social media websites and DVD slideshows.  Maybe I need to start producing more prints again…

As we’re on a nostalgic theme, here’s a classic studio portrait of Patricia (click to enlarge.)