A resurgence in film photography is benefiting businesses like Picture Perfect Photo Lab in Albuquerque, which has seen an uptick in orders for film development and pictures being printed.
Matt Alexander, owner of Picture Perfect Photo Lab, said people of all ages have ventured into film photography during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We kind of dipped down to like 50 rolls a week, which is what we were doing like in the mid-2000s,” he told KOB 4 News. “2015, 2016, we maybe got up to about 100 rolls. Now we’re up to like 200 rolls a week, and so that’s really cool when you can see that many rolls of film come through.”
Film photography has become popular again, thanks to platforms like TikTok and Instagram. People are also going beyond using social media apps and filters to try to achieve the same effects as a real film camera.
“I have no idea what exactly it is,” Alexander said, according to KOB 4 News. “I don’t know if it’s digital fatigue and you want something that’s real and you want something that you can kind of hold on to.”
While the increase in film development requests is welcomed, it may never return to the level of the pre-digital era.
“Digital revolution photography really turned the whole industry on its head,” Alexander said. “In the ’90s, we used to print for almost every pro photographer in town.”
Year by year, there were fewer and fewer regular customers -- until now.
