1940's "Oh that is spectacular (insert enormous print of the American Midwest from a large format negative, painstakingly taken and processed with ground breaking, cutting edge and often hand made gear). The tones, the location and the light, amazing."

1960's "I really like the spontaneity of the picture (insert slightly blurry, grainy black and white image of Paris street life), the way it shows me the emotion and the way people actually are".

1970's "The colours are so vibrant and true to life skin tones (insert any National Geo portrait of people in a third world country taken on Kodachrome. Note all other colours are muted). This photo makes me want to travel to the far corners of the world and make a difference".

1980's "Now we can finally do wilderness photography in colour (Insert Fuji Velvia large format to 35mm slide printed as a Cibachrome print) the way it was meant to be seen. The greens and blues are amazing".

1990's "Is there anything more to do to create the perfect image (insert studio portrait or product shot taken on medium format film, printed on a bill board or as a fine art print, viewed from the correct distances)? I don't think so!".

Early 2000's "The digital image is ok for its size (insert 3mp image printed on early A4 photo paper with a home printer because a lab can't print it), but the film image is so much better. Maybe digital will get there some day, but it has a ways to go yet".

Mid 2000's "This is all we need to replace film (insert a 6mp image printed in a film lab)!"

2010's "The high ISO performance and sharpness of the image (insert ISO 3200 image from a 12mp full frame file, slightly noisy and sometimes over sharpened) are better than anything we have seen before, this a game changer".

Mid 2010's "I love the grainy look and the contrast (insert any image from any camera/phone processed with a film simulation programme, usually too grainy and contrasty, posted online). The film look really takes me back and gives the image an original style". 

2020's "Oh that is spectacular (insert enormous print of the American Midwest from a 100mp SLR file, easily taken, processed and printed with the latest ground breaking, cutting edge and expensive gear of the time). The tones, the location and the light are amazing".

Only took us 80 years for the cycle to repeat but we got back there in the end.