Our obsession with recycling the past
Moving past selfie sticks and ring lights, there has been a new renaissance in photography trends among young adults with the rise in popularity of film and digital cameras. Nights spent partying frequently start with taking photos on the ‘digicam’ before heading out to enjoy the evening with the hopes of catching a few more pictures while dancing. The digital camera, once just associated with childhood photos and blurry bad quality for our generation, has once again become highly sought after, despite most people having a perfectly decent camera sitting in their back pockets.
The first digital camera wasn’t invented until 1975 by engineer Steven Sasson. Even then, the technology didn’t become widespread until the 1990s, when the prices of digital cameras went down, which made them far more attainable for the average person or family. Sales for digital cameras peaked around 2010 before declining by 80 percent by 2018, presumably due to the rise of cell phones. The film camera, on the other hand, has been around much longer, with the invention of the Kodak camera in 1888; yet, its popularity died down around the same time the digital camera began to rise. However, this downward trend has been reversed in recent years as the demand for film cameras has grown once again. One small Canadian camera shop has even stated that they produce approximately 10,000 rolls of film per week and that their store is in the process of further expansion. Today, both kinds of cameras are back in trend for young adults everywhere, as they are even being used by those who have no further photographic aspirations. This raises the question: why choose to make photo-taking more complicated for yourself? Why choose alternative forms of photography?
One answer is obviously the inevitable recycling of trends happening every several years. With social media and the constant search for the new, unique thing, it comes as no surprise that two trends that were rivals for a moment in time are now coexisting in popularity—the cycle moving so quickly that it ultimately overlaps or perhaps has stopped existing altogether. The nostalgia of our parents’ generation and looking at old photos with grainy filters has become aspirational as we take inspiration from seemingly happier times of the past—the constant media obsession with the 90s and early 2000s speaks to this—towards our futures. The rose-coloured glasses we see the past through seem almost literal with the filters on film and digital cameras. It’s not a new phenomenon to view the past as better than the present. Psychologists even refer to this as declinism: the belief that society is constantly heading towards decline, which comes out of memories often dwelling and reinforcing the positive times of the past while forgetting the negatives. The quality of film and digital cameras allow us to recreate the imagery through which we look at the past, making us feel as though we are reliving the ‘good old days.’
On the other hand, the convenience of photo-taking made by smartphones revolutionised how many and how quickly photos could be taken. On a single device, thousands of photographs can be stored, retaken, and perfected with ease—but it’s something about the inability for perfection on older forms of photography that gives it its charm. In an age where refinement is so simple, it can feel like beauty has lost its meaning, but when beauty is captured through a more difficult means, the meaning is restored. One such means is the absolute limitation of film and digital photography. Film photography is taken on a limited roll of film, which costs money and takes time to develop, meaning that each photo counts and cannot simply be deleted and retaken. The digital camera, on the other hand, although much more simple than film, is still limited in regards to having an SD chip that has a limited space and photos on it still need to be developed or downloaded.
There’s also the aspect of delayed gratification. Interestingly, this has become a large value of the recent trends in photography, ditching the convenience of immediately being able to analyse or edit photos without having to wait to develop or download them. One photographer even cites this as the “most magical aspect of film photography,” and one journalist referenced the recent popularity of digital cameras as the thinking behind the “slow technology movement,” that hopes to create an emphasis on “self-reflection, rather than efficiency or productivity.” The self-reflection added by slowing down the photographic process is valuable because, in a society that truly values time as a commodity, it can feel hard to justify taking some for yourself for a hobby. The excitement of getting ready to see the photos creates a positive tension. Something which is far less present in viewing photographs on your phone because in between the million clicks and live photos taken on phones, there is the knowledge that something is bound to be “good.” But even in the seemingly ugly taken on film or digital cameras, something far more raw and un-editable is captured, and maybe it’s that unique, off-guard beauty captured in old photographs that we’re trying so hard to replicate today.
