Photography was once a skill, and now, one might argue, it’s not.
Photoshop-like apps and digital photography have ruined photography forever. Photography used to require skill – training and years of experience. Now, any lazy person can take a picture. In fact, even an LLM can!
Developing film was once a borderline sacred ritual and art form. People spent hours in the dark, inhaling (likely) toxic chemicals, missing meals with loved ones, sloshing film paper back and forth in some chemicals. (In hindsight, I mourn for all those clothespin workers who are also probably out of work with the demise of darkrooms. So sad…)
Ever since the rise of digital cameras in the late 1990s and early 2000s, coupled with the pox of social media and photo-library storage sites, we have been drowning in digital photo slop. People take horrible pictures and… gasp… share them! It’s an abomination. Lowest-common-denominator bullsh*t! People have come to accept bad digital slop photos as acceptable. What are we to do?!
Photography training programs have dried up. Professional photographers that once raked in $5000 to take shots of a youth sports league must now compete with that overly friendly “soccer mom” who volunteers to take team pictures for free! (Gasp!) And those moms don’t even use proper lighting – they don’t use any lighting! Instead, they click an “AI Effects” button on their phone to make the photo look as though they used proper lighting!
Can you believe this?! Years of skill building destroyed by one latte-wielding mother who thinks she’s the next Life Magazine photographer… Wait, magazines don’t exist anymore either? Blasted! Where was the EU with its regulations when you needed it?! If only they had been together enough to label internet magazines and news media as substandard, derivative slop with tags and watermarks sooner. The world would be a much better place today. (Sigh.)
Today, to celebrate World Photography Day, I thought it would be fun to remember just how miserable and guild-protected an experience photography was for almost everyone who was not privileged or wealthy enough to be trained in professional cartography or own their own basement chemical plant. Analog photography sucked for most people – required buying film, loading it, taking random shots, dropping film off, waiting to see if any pictures were any good, and realizing most were rubbish.
It was super expensive. The process required three separate trips minimum, before the advent of one-hour photography. This was detrimental for the environment, because transportation is carbon – in most cases. Moreover, the film itself and processing costs meant that pictures might cost a buck each – even if they stunk.
The processing and camera equipment was even more expensive. It was often difficult to operate.
Finally, the dials and metrics on the camera themselves were also fiddly, inconsistent, and often required a degree in calculus to interpret. After a senior class in photography and years of looking at 35mm cameras, I still can’t quite remember what that damn “f” symbol means. Whatever… I don’t need to anymore.
Yes, there is still a place for professional photography. I can’t deny that. Skilled photography looks amazing and elicits emotion.
But no… it’s not that valuable a skill. It’s hard to make a living in photography unless you are a relative of a Hollywood producer, perhaps. And quite frankly, life is much better for a vast majority of people who are no longer dependent on overpriced photography.
True, there is now a TON of digital photo slop out there. Including 99% of the photos in anyone’s digital library, presumably. But that’s okay, because not everything has to be good in this world. To quote a grad school favorite band of mine, Le Tigre: “Mediocrity rules, man.” A good enough photo is all you need to never forget what your aunt’s rhubarb pie looked like after a fox found it at the family picnic.
Today’s map shows the remaining places you can develop 35mm film. Why? Because it’s a metaphor for what many of us in professional cartography and academic cartography are experiencing and can’t stop right now. A watershed transition within the capitalist market.
There aren’t many places left to get your 35mm film developed. The biggest ones are in existence because they process the rolls that Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens contract out to them. And of course, there are a few boutique, artsy joints, and that is a good thing. But compared to the 1990s even… they are beyond endangered. They are at extinction level.
For fun, I also included a list of photography competitions for 35mm and analog photography. Just in case anyone out there still uses film cameras, you can send your film to get processed at one of these locations, and then you can submit your photos to a contest. It’s not a way to make a living, necessarily, but it might pay for a night out if you win. One contest offers the top 5 winners $20 each! And another offers you $100 in free microbrewery beer too – but only if you win.
You get the point. Technology continues to evolve. In fact, humans evolve with technology. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Humans would almost certainly be extinct without technology. And so it goes…
You either adapt with technology or… I guess if you’re good at photography, you can still drink lots of beer?
Happy World Photography Day!
View Map HereInitial Web Mapper Prompt
Intended Audiece
35mm and dark-room/analog photographers and connosieurs who want to potentially enter a photo competition.
Map Purpose
Highlight two things: the remaining (known) places to purchase and develop 35mm film across the US. And: highlight and promote the remaining 35mm or analog film only photography competitions in the US.
Datasets
- Excel file of competitions with addresses, lat/lon of location, URLs, etc. Sheet to use == Competitions
- Excel file of processing centers left. Sheet to use == Active 35mm Labs
Data Design
- It would be cool to create a searchable reference map or one that filters by state, etc., for photo processing places.
- Coupled with this, a layer showing all relevant competitions and pertinent information about the competition and hyperlinks to more details etc.
Off-the-Wall Idea
I don’t have a map design schema for this, but I would love, love, love it if you could come up with a “film negative” type representation of the map. Obviously, we will need US states (hopefully D3 with Albers Equal Area and Alaska and Hawaii below the southeastern US). But then have everything look like a film negative, with the glare, etc.
Pop ups should be quite square, border radius of 2px or so. Type face should be analog… kind of 1980s IBM typewriter or clear, print letter handwriting font. Please try to differentiate competitions from processing centers somehow (shape, etc.).
Make this look like a negative map that still needs to be processed in a dark room 1970s/early 1980s cartography darkroom style. Just interactive.
Title should be floating in the upper left over the map on laptop. On mobile phone, have it across the top with no background and US a bit below that.
Don’t use a hamburger icon but insttead, write “Sources” and have a box drawn around it.
In the sources modal, please describe what the map shows, mention Cartographer: [Ian Muehlenhaus](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmule)
Mention the map is part of the [#365DaysOfMaps Contest](https://mapdesign.icaci.org) and celebrates National Photography Day.
Please provide dataset sources, if available, APIs used, and [Web Mapper NLGIS Suite](https://www.webmapgpt.com).
Make sure the popups are scrollable and entirely visible on mobile and that they come fromt the bottom. On desktop/laptops, please have the pop up appear next to the point that is clicked.
DO NOT INCLUDE THE DEFAULT BROWSER BLUE RECTANGLE FOCUS/ACTIVE SHAPE. I hate it. Thanks. Highlight hovered or selected objects some other way. Thanks!