Shadow of its former self

The giełda fotograficzna at Stodoła, the Warsaw Polytechnic students' club on ul. Batorego, was once the largest weekly camera fair in Europe. Who knows, it still may be, but compared to its glory days in the late 1990s, it's fading fast. Gone are all the stands upstairs and along the side corridors, gone are the long queues of punters waiting to get in.

Stodoła itself is legendary. Earlier this summer, Bob Dylan played on the very stage from which I took this photo. Just about any famous Polish musician, and a fair number of British and American stars, have played here. But on Sunday mornings, this is where Warsaw's photographers gather to buy and sell.

In the glory days of the giełda. I'd queue for ten minutes to get in, push through jostling crowds - in the main arena, then upstairs, then the side corridors - to see where the interesting stuff was,. Then I'd rest a bit over a beer before throwing myself back into the fray for some energetic haggling. This is where to come to to get rid of redundant kit and replace it with that new zoom lens or some collectible classic camera. Collectors would flock from across Europe in search of rare items at bargain prices.

Three things have done for the camera fair; the strong zloty (camera and lens prices are some 10%-15% more expensive than in the UK high street, even though prices here are cheaper than in Warsaw's photography shops); online shopping and - the main factor - digital photography. Consumables are now memory cards rather than film, chemicals or paper. Old-school photographers who've not converted to digital, however, will find this place heaven. There's loads of codgers selling their Zenits, Zorkis, Kievs, FEDs, lenses and all the accessories to go with - enlargers, developing tanks, trays, etc. etc. Yet the one thing I came for - a 35mm digital film scanner to turn decades of memory into something that I can manipulate and display on my computer - I could not find. Ah well, in a few weeks time I'll be back in London, so I'll buy one at Jessops or Dixons Tax Free at the airport.