A new study has found that 7 in 10 Europeans either print their photos or turn them into some sort of memorable keepsake.
The survey, which was commissioned by ecommerce platform AgfaPhoto, questioned 4,000 people in Germany, France, the UK and Italy, also finding that, among 18-35-year-olds, the number rises to 8 in 10 who print their photos.
While photography surveys always need to be taken with a pinch of salt (after all, you're much more likely to respond if photography interests you already) the new data suggests that, even for digital-native Europeans, the convenience of one-click photos hasn't replaced the desire to own physical photographs.
Of the 18-35-year-olds who printed their photos, 50% said they do so because they want their pictures to have a retro, vintage aesthetic while 40% did so to show their images at family occasions.
However, our wider research suggests that this seeming resurgence of printing photos and analog photography goes beyond recreating the vintage aesthetic popularized by Instagram.
In fact, our US editor Hillary Grigonis recently chatted with a Fujifilm executive who said that, for some, analog photography is about doing away with the culture of photographic merit based on “likes and comments” driven by social media platforms.
AgfaPhoto's newly released findings don't suggest that younger Europeans are simply abandoning digital photography, though. After all, according to the survey, 35% of respondents use a smartphone as their main camera.
Does this survey truly represent Europeans in general or just Europeans who already have an interest in photography? My instincts tell me it's the latter.
However, at least among photographers in the surveyed countries, I'd agree with Julien Lelarge, marketing director at GT Company, an AgfaPhoto brand licensee, who said there's a “desire to give certain memories special meaning and to make them tangible.”
AgfaPhoto hasn’t publicly released the survey dataset nor clarified its survey methodology.
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