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/
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