Only
digital photography is currently suitable for a
vegan.
Photographic film is composed of a plastic film, covered with an
emulsion made from
gelatin and light-sensitive
silver salts. The gelatin is produced from ground and processed
animal bones.
Several companies (
Fuji and
Kodak included) are researching vegan alternatives to gelatin-based eumlsion, but so far, although the
image quality can be matched, the
durability of the
negatives suffers.
Solutions open to vegans are to use the film absolutely as
sparingly as possible or, if they are strict, to switch to digital methods, although the
cost vs. performance ratio will soar. The
Ricoh RDC-300 camera is the first camera to be
approved by the
Vegetarian Society.
Due to the possible definitions of vegetarian versus vegan, I refer to vegans throughout this piece. If you are vegetarian, and any of this applies to you, please include yourself. Some vegetarians would be happy to take photos on conventional film, but not happy to eat it :o)
Sources:
http://www.derec.freeserve.co.uk/camera.html
http://www.photogeek.net/vegan/