The first high profile high street casualty of the year has appeared in the form of Jessops, who have been selling cameras since 1935 and went into administration last week. 

It was hoped that the administrators, Price Waterhouse Coopers, could salvage something from the wreckage but unfortunately the entire network of 187 stores has had to close and 1,370 staff have lost their jobs.

They join an even larger name in the world of photography, Eastman Kodak, who in the US have had to file for bankruptcy, both companies either side of the pond hit by the shift to digital photography and the evolution of ever higher quality picture taking ability from a standard smartphone.

Kodak has various businesses around the globe still functioning and hope to emerge from bankruptcy some time this year, having sold patents it held for US$ 525 million in December, though they were once valued by the company itself at US2.6 billion.