Was there a boom in film photography interest in the late 60s early 70s?

[IBM]

*Mod Note - this is a general interest post, to do with the history of photography, so please don't move it*

I'm looking to make a point in a case study with regards to the success of Jessops in the late 60s and early 70s. I've hypothesised that there must have been a boom in photography around that time, and just wondering if anyone knew of anything that might support this?

I'm thinking about the rise of the photojournalist in Vietnam, the increasing popularity of Time magazine, National Geographic etc.

What about development of cameras and companies? Anyone know if there was any great progress around that time? New cameras and technology?

Cheers

[Rave]

Look....if you were to pick my brains, I could come up with loads of stuff about photographic history. I'm just flummoxed as to why you'd be interested in Jessops- I used to work for them. AFAIK they didn't become a major force until the late 80s, or even later. They took over my original employer, Tecno, in 2000- and up until that point they only had 100 stores, or maybe less than tha. (they took over City Camera Exchange at the same time- or a week earlier).

I love film cameras- I mean really love them. I have about 5 folding medium format cameras just for the joy of owning them. If I could reclaim them from my former colleagues I also have several TLRs. I have a decent Mamiya 645 Super system laying idle. If you want to chat about Nikon Fs, F2s, and F3s then I daresay it'll all come back to me.

There was a Vietnam war phototographer whose first name was Don and who took the quintessential images on his Nikon F2. Google ain't helping my right now, but give it a go.

Edit: found him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McCullin

2nd edit: here's the photo you'll never forget once you've seen it (I never will):

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/micros...ge/im00233.jpg

[Rave]

Right, well I've read your post a bit more and I'm still a bit lost as to what you want to know. Certainly the early 70s was when Kodak finalised the C41 process that has remained the standard colour negative film developing process to this day. It was also around then that they finalised the Kodachrome K14 process- which is why if any of your old relatives have Kodachrome slides, they'll still look extraodinarily fresh to this day, as long as they haven't spend ours in front of a projector lens. The colours just don't fade goddamnit.

The 70s was when 35mm film- or 135- started its takeover of the consumer photography market. It had been around- and available to Leica and Contax users- since the 50s- but the late 60s/70s was when it started to edge out 120 and 127 rollfilm. As it got easier to use it then edged out Kodak's old 126 instamatic format (in which I shot all my photos until I was about 11). 110 format- essentially 16mm film in a little cartridge- did alright from the late 70s till the late 80s (I had one) but agin lost favour when it lost most of its price advantage. So from the early 90s to the early 2000s 35mm reigned supreme- a mere 70 years afer it was invented>

[IBM]

Cheers Rave, nice to see you laxing lyrical about something other than financial doom

We had a case study looking at the rise and fall of Jessops, from their metapmorphosis from a small independant retailer, to a chain with 250+ stores, and now a chain that's closing a third of all stores and has just refinanced with a £66million loan from HSBC....with interest at 18%, meaning the forcast finances for next year are 21million in, and 18.5million out in interest payments alone...

The 70s was when Jessops experienced the most fundamental changes to it's sales strategy, with mail order and 'stock 'em high, sell 'em cheap' strategies. I just wanted some supporting evidence to add to why they became so big, and hypothosised that it must have been in conjunction with market growth and was looking for reasons for why this might have happened.

I wish that I had time to learn film photography but I'm stuck with digital and I doubt I'll ever get round to it...

Thanks for the input though...

[TheAnimus]

Advent of easy to use colour photogrophy, combined with increased consumer spending?

Jessops current financial status is intresting, i've been watching them for the past few months, thinking of going long in nov and selling before xmas.

They grossly over expanded of late lots of this going on think of flopp. I always forget the proper name, but when a company is expanding, its worth more than it really is. Too many companies fall into the trap of financing this continued groth based on the last groth. This in my mind is what jessops did of late.

[IBM]

Yeah, financial projections but it as medium to high risk investment, given that current assets put it into the 'undervalued' category, but it just seems to be in such a dead end sector atm that I don't think I would buy into it.