Want to shoot a perfect photo and see it instantly? That was nearly impossible before the digital camera came along,almost eclipsing the business of the neighbourhood photo studio. You no longer need to knock on the door of a professional photographer to get a perfect photo and wait anxiously for a day or two to see the print. The digital age has brought convenience into hands,but it has also made some unhappy like Hiranya Bharali,a photo studio owner in Guwahati. One of the oldest studios in the Northeast's most important city,the College Studio has fallen on bad days with the number of customers steadily declining. "I don't blame the customers. Certainly they are not expected to use film-cameras and wait for the prints to show up next day or day after. The digital cameras have altered the scenario for ever,perhaps," Bharali rued. The only people who have kept us ticking along,though quite faintly,are the students and professionals who want quick passport-size photographs required for official purpose. "We rarely get to see people who want to pose with a cardboard scenery or stuff like that. Only during Saraswati Puja,the girls come for a group picture," Bharali said. Another owner Deven Das,who runs a studio here,echoed Bharali. "The only people who still come for photos with the cardboard backgrounds of scenic spots are those from the rural areas or less-literate ones. Even they also these days are not coming,having had the experience of shooting from a camera phone," Das said. While professional photographers from studios are still in demand for clicking wedding pictures,people use their handycams or SLRs with video capture facility for taking photos during smaller functions like birthdays. The easy availability of cheap,digital cameras,besides the camera-phones,have surely hit business,summed up Bharali. "With a digital camera,you can click 200 photos and pick 10 best of them. You need not be a professional to do that," says the owner of Highland Studio which has a chain of studios in Shillong. "But people do not understand what an anxious delight we used to spend the two days with waiting for the negative to turn into the actual photo," he said. Industry sources said the digicam market has grown at 50 per cent last year and similar growth pattern is expected in 2010. They said customers were not just shifting preferences from analog to digital,but also owning multiple cameras. Companies on their part are also constantly innovating on design,functionality and technology.
