Digital photography has spelt the end of an era in the world of photography, and many small photographic businesses have suffered as a result. One of them is Foto Ramos, owned by María Cristina Ramos Muñoz, who began helping her father in the developing and printing laboratory as a child. Now aged 48, she tells us that printing on paper is making something of a come-back, because most people still like to see the pictures they take on paper.
Do people still use old-fashioned rolls of film?
Yes, many of them, especially older people. The quality of the print is better than in digital photography, and many foreigners in the area are loathe to change as well.
But is it not true that anybody can be a photographer with a digital camera?
That’s what most people think, but there is a lot more to photography than pointing the camera and clicking. We cannot deny that digital photography has more or less taken over the market, and it is very easy to use, but one only has to see some of the photographs clients give us to print to see how bad the quality can be. I usually touch them up before printing them, to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Do your clients like to keep their photographs on file on their computers or see them on paper?
Preferences change all the time, but now most people like to see the pictures on paper, as in the past. There were a few years during which nobody brought in their photographs to be printed, and they tended to be lost in the computer files. Worse still is the idea of printing one’s own photographs on a home printer: the quality is abysmal. What we print out in a processing laboratory will last a hundred years, but the ink-jet or laser print will begin to lose its colour after six months. It’s cheaper in the long term to have the job done properly.
