Back when I was growing up many moons ago, virtually every town had a photo store or photo studio.

You would go there for portraits. Businesses would call them for LCB (Liquor Control Board) photos. Lawyers would use their services to take photos of everything from liability cases to bodily injury suits to damage cases.Young photographers would learn their trade by hanging out, learning the techniques for taking good pictures and utilizing their equipment to learn all about developing film and printing the pictures.Digital photography, including Smart Phones, have not only taken over but they've been putting photographers out of business.Several newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, have actually gotten rid of their photography staffs. Because of digital photography, the newspapers will ask their reporters to provide more photography and video for their stories.It's not only newspapers which cut back on photographers. So did TV stations.TV stations used to buy material from freelancers. Today, with phones having video capabilities, people send pictures of fires, accidents, and other newsworthy events for free and it is used on the air.Some emergency responders have taken photos and sent them to various media outlets.Many people still use professionals to shoot weddings. But just as many rely on friends and relatives to shoot them. Even low-cost cameras produce better pictures than the old Brownies did.There is a problem with digital photography, though.In the old days, you would shoot a roll of film and take it to the photo shop or even a local drug store to be processed.How many of you get prints made from the photos you shoot with your phone or even your household digital camera?A lot of people store the photos on their desktop. If their hard drive dies, they lose all the pictures they were saving.Or, they lost their phone or had their camera card become corrupt and have the pictures they had been saving for years permanently vanish.Recently, I was at a school in the Poconos taking sports team photos for the newpaper. A professional photographer was there taking them for the school. His company had distributed envelopes in advance for orders of the individual and team photos.The photographer told me that very few parents order the pictures anymore. They take photos themselves, especially at events. He said that for the first time in his 25-year career, he needed a second job.Go to a high school concert or play and you'll see that dozens of people have cameras.Will there be jobs for professional photographers in the future?Realtors, lawyers, and other professionals all take their own photos now instead of hiring professionals.Photographers will still be needed in the future in such fields as forensics, criminal investigation, public relations, and corporate in-house projects.But the jobs will be significantly more scarce than they were even 20 years ago.And you'll be seeing fewer curbside photo shops.Developing film already is a virtually extinct art.