At the end of February, I played a little game on social media in the form of a film photography “Never Have I Ever…” For a fun little game, the response was nothing short of amazing. It also got me thinking. You see, I didn’t really take into account HOW people would reply – some merely stated their final mark and others posted the question numbers that they hadn’t managed to cross off the list.

What kinds of insights and trends could be discovered if the game was formalised a bit without taking away the fun element? Would it be possible to use some hard data to get a real picture of our global community? Well, I believe it’s worth a shot.

If you missed it the first time round, here it is.

Never Have I Ever – Film Photography Edition

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve extended the original set of 60 questions to nearly 250. With the help of half a dozen or so members of the community who offered their advice, support and sanity checks, the finished survey is now ready for release.

250ish questions might seem long but I assure you, it’s quite straight forward. It will take roughly 10-12 minutes to complete in a single sitting. As with the original image I posted on social media, the updated survey asks you about your experiences in the following areas:

  • Shooting different film stocks and formats.
  • Using different types of cameras, lenses and accessories.
  • Your use of photographic techniques, aides and tools.
  • Working in the darkroom, “daylight developing” film and scanning/digitising.
  • Accidents and screw-ups.

Here’s my ask:

I’d like your help to get as many responses from every corner of our global film and traditional photography community as possible. It’s not a huge request and every single like, comment, share and most importantly, response, is going to help map the film and traditional photography community through the sets of shared experiences you’ll find inside.

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What happens once the results are in? The survey is open for the next four weeks (March 20th – April 17th 2020). Once the survey is closed, I’ll collect the data and break out and identify trends based on experiences, age and rough location amongst other things.

The result will be published in a summary report along with a series of visualisations here on EMULSIVE.

Important: the survey includes some really basic demographic questions covering approximate age, location, etc. but survey responses are anonymous by default. You can provide an email address as part of your response if you wish. As explained in the survey below, this will be used for future follow up questions.

The survey itself could have easily been double the size it is now! I fully expect to extend it in the future to cover a broader spread and ask questions specific to certain types of photographers, especially those of you reading this who generate your incomes from photography. For now, let’s get the basics covered.

The form is embedded below but if you have any problems viewing it on your screen, you can open it directly here.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your help in spreading the word, I appreciate it.

~ EM

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About the author

Avatar - EM

Founder, overlord, and editor-in-chief at EMULSIVE.org. I may be a benevolent gestalt entity but contrary to increasingly popular belief, I am not an AI.

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42 Comments

 

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  1. After I originally left a comment I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on whenever a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. There has to be a means you can remove me from that service? Many thanks.

    Reply

    1. I can’t do that on your behalf but you directly manage this by clicking the “unsubscribe” link on the bottom of the email you receive. That will take you to a page where you can unsubscribe from specific comment threads and websites (not just this one). Hope that helps!

      Reply

  2. Here’s an interesting idea for a future survey – what discontinued products would film photographers/darkroom users like to see revived? For example, Ars-Imago has revived the daylight loading kit but are there other products? One thing I personally would like to see is something along the lines of the Kodak De Lux Photo Hobby Kit for medium format cameras (it came with a developing tank, tongs, trays & a contact printer)

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  39. 131/245. I’m happy with that given my “day job” is not as a photographer. Some other questions to consider in the future: have you ever made colour prints in a
    home darkroom; have you ever made a print from a colour slide with either the Cibachrome or Ilfochrome process. I might have picked up a couple of points there…

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