Sustainable "Eco" Photography?

Eirebear

I've been pondering this a wee bit over the last while.
Everything around us is going "green", or at least telling us that it is - what about photography?

Obviously digital has it's benefits over film, as there is no packaging or negs left to lie around, but what about everything else?

Ink for example, the amount of packaging ink comes in is mental when you think about it. The ink itself can't be too great for the environment can it?
Or papers? I know you can buy recycled inkjet papers, but are there labs out there who can provide a proffesional printing service using this kind of stuff?

Other things too, like flash bulbs etc - i can't imagine photographers wanting to switch to energy savers any time soon!

I know there are obviously issues in terms of archival quality - we don't particularly want our prints to be as easily biodegradable as your average household waste, but is there a compromise out there?
Or would it fall under the DIY photography bracket and maybe putting back what you use in other ways?

DaireQuinlan

Eirebear wrote: »

Obviously digital has it's benefits over film, as there is no packaging or negs left to lie around, but what about everything else?

I'd say the benefits aren't aren't anywhere near as much as you imagined, and could well be in the red as far as digital is concerned. There's an incredible amount of churn nowadays in people replacing their digital bodies every year or 2 years for the next shiny, and a tremendous amount of ancillary infrastructure built up around the idea of digital photography, ie unnecessarily powerful PCs to run the latest version of photoshop etc etc.

If you examine the environmental cost of manufacturing all these camera bodies and other electrical equipment, you might find the scales tipping in the other direction a little. In any event I wouldn't imagine it's in any way as definitive as you'd think.

Eirebear

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

I'd say the benefits aren't aren't anywhere near as much as you imagined, and could well be in the red as far as digital is concerned. There's an incredible amount of churn nowadays in people replacing their digital bodies every year or 2 years for the next shiny, and a tremendous amount of ancillary infrastructure built up around the idea of digital photography, ie unnecessarily powerful PCs to run the latest version of photoshop etc etc.

If you examine the environmental cost of manufacturing all these camera bodies and other electrical equipment, you might find the scales tipping in the other direction a little. In any event I wouldn't imagine it's in any way as definitive as you'd think.

Yeah that's a fair point.

I guess though i'm looking at it more from the perspective of the photographer, at this point - what can we do, do we have a responsibility to do so?

Eirebear

Guys i get why this has been moved in here - but i meant it more as a discussion than an out and out tech thread.

mehfesto

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

I'd say the benefits aren't aren't anywhere near as much as you imagined, and could well be in the red as far as digital is concerned. There's an incredible amount of churn nowadays in people replacing their digital bodies every year or 2 years for the next shiny, and a tremendous amount of ancillary infrastructure built up around the idea of digital photography, ie unnecessarily powerful PCs to run the latest version of photoshop etc etc.
.

Whatever about PS, but I don't think anyone throws their old camera in the bin!
Surely recycling (or selling on, in this case) is very ecologically friendly?