articles/Paper/gfsmithanniv-page2
Published 01/08/2015
Fascinatingly, Tim recalls that 30 years ago the fashion was that 90% of product was brown in colour - including all album leaves and overlays. "If a couple wanted to be really different they maybe went for off-white, but it was all post-bound albums and that's what the business was all about. Things have changed just a touch since then. In terms of production, digital print turned everything on its head for everybody. Plus, slightly before that, in around 2000, the reportage style albums started coming into play, where, rather than having one image per page, we could now have four, five or six prints per page. That facility in turn altered people's photographic shooting style. We had to change tack to accommodate this new demand, almost overnight."
Changing, evolving, growing the product range
Other big changes in not just the past 30 years, but also the most recent 15, include the fact that most photographers' high-street businesses have vanished, to be replaced by more affordable home studios.
"The other notable thing is the increased number of women photographers," Tim Berry adds. "Going back 30 years you might have got the odd one or two - typically the wife helping out - whereas now the split is 50:50, or not far off.
"The difference is that, because of digital, a lot of people have realised that it's a profession they can go into. And fit it around their home life, if they've got children."
That begs the question as to whether there is a difference in the type of products male and female photographers tend to choose from GF Smith Photographic. The reply is that: "It's pretty much the same to be honest. In general the products have got much more fashionable - perhaps we can put that down to an increasing female touch. Even 15 years ago you were limited in terms of choice of album colours, but now thanks to our Colorplan range, the offering we have is huge.
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