When Kodak announced that they would no longer manufacture B&W paper, and Nikon announced that they would discontinue producing most of their ‘film’ cameras, and Konica Minolta exited the camera business, a lot of photographers felt disenfranchised. Like losing a dependable friend.

Painters in the 19th century must have felt much the same way when the camera obscura came along. Back then, some artists continued using the same medium (oil, watercolor, tempera); others moved to the new medium, photography. But few closed up shop and quit altogether. The passion to create was still there. Digital is only one medium for the expression of artistic talent.

Analog photography will continue, especially B&W, as long as people are intrigued by the subtly of this medium of good art. However, the challenge for photographers today who want to support themselves with their photography, is to re-tool and move over to digital. It’s costly and it’s time-consuming to learn. But digital is definitely now where it’s at.

Some of the newly-hired photobuyers have never worked with slides.

Here at PhotoSource International, we can attest that more and more buyers prefer digital submissions--at the least, thumbnails--to review what’s available. And now direct download of digital files is becoming the delivery of choice.

When you master this part of the equation (submitting hi-res pictures to your markets), you will be well on your way to being a part of the 21st century way of dealing with photobuyers. No one ever said freelancing was easy.