Earlier quoted context omitted.
Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days ago and I’ve not seen a better market for photography since the 1980s. Camera phones are simply the new point and shoot, taking their place at the bottom end or convenience end of the market, and many of those people enjoying using those cameras have a great…
It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu... I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the…
I also hear you on the point about transitioning to newer tools, but would suggest that photography has always required significant personal investment in money and time, and one must sweat the assets as they say, to make them pay off. Some technologies seem more convenient, like digital, but can end up by funnelling all the effort onto fewer people, instead of throwing the film over the fence to other professionals who could do a much better and faster job of developing and printing.
Sometimes of course, the sweat and toil is all part of the product - as no doubt my mate who built his own camera made from the timber of the woods near his home would tell you - but in the modern world, most people just want to see the image as soon as they can…