Everything Analog

Everything Analog Film photography resurgence · Digital vs Analog · Photographer’s views · Illustration

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Photography

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The resurgence of film photography

Analog vs Digital

Photographer’s views

Creativity

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Bibliography

PHOTOGRAPHY

“Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.”

Ansel Adams

The resurgence of film photography This is an exploration of the resurgence of film photography that will investigate the subject through primary and secondary research. I will start with a brief summary of historical events concerning photography.

The history of photography has been rather short, around 200 years, and in that small lapse of time it has had an incredible evolution. The basic concept of photography has been around since about the 5th century but it wasn’t until the development of something called the `Camera Obscura´ in the 11th century that the art was born. This camera did not actually record images, it simply projected them onto another surface. A long time passed until the 17th century when the camera obscura became small enough to be portable and basic lenses to focus the light were also introduced. But Photography as we know it today began in the late 1830s in France. Suddenly there was a huge amount of experimentation in the field and photography progressed very rapidly. Nevertheless, during this period Photography was only for professionals and the very rich, until George Eastman started a company called Kodak in the 1880s. With this new company, the consumer would take pictures and send the camera back to the factory for the film to be developed and prints made, much like modern disposable cameras. However, the film was still large in comparison to today’s 35mm film. It was not until the late 1940s that 35mm film became cheap enough for the majority of consumers to use, and the rapid propagation of the commercial analog cameras we know today. 1.[Liz Masoner (2019) A brief history of Photography and the Camera.]

Until that time, photography had always been a very physical concept consisting of chemical processes of the film and subsequent printing of the photographs, but then came the digital age. In the

1980s and 1990s, numerous manufacturers worked on cameras that stored images electronically. The first of these were point-and-shoot cameras that used digital media instead of film. And by 1991, Kodak had produced the first digital camera that was advanced enough to be used successfully by professionals, the Kodak Digital Camera System.

Nowadays, the technological advancements have been so huge that almost everyone carries a portable micro camera around with them in their mobile phones, which take much higher quality images than all those cameras that had been developed up until the 1880s. 1.[Liz Masoner (2019) A brief history of Photography and the Camera.]

All these technological advances lead to the eventual decline of analog photography and the start and evolution of the digital era. When this more immediate and simpler method of photography was invented it was only natural that photography lovers changed their old analog cameras and film developing dark rooms for the new and seemingly superior digital ones, which didn’t even require their photos to be printed, were much easier to use with fully automatic mode and had incredible results in terms of quality even for complete beginners.

Throughout this brief history the overall design of the cameras has been in constant flux and developed in accordance with the times and situations surrounding them. From changes in materials to usability improvements, there are innumerable designs which depict the trends and technological advances of their generation.

Analog greed, Laura Chillida 2022

How have we humans been impacted by photography? And why would we choose to go back from digital to film photography? I tried to find answers to these conundrums through primary and secondary research.

We can’t deny that photography has had a major impact on society and culture as a whole. The way of portraying people and situations up until the invention of the camera had always been through paintings, drawings or descriptive writings.

Subsequently, around World War II, the camera’s started to be used to capture images of life as it occurred rather than staged portraits. When the War started, photojournalists wanted to reflect the gruesome reality of the battlefield with their 35mm film cameras, with examples like the “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” by Joel Rosenthal, which brought the reality of war home and helped galvanize the American people like never before. This new way of capturing decisive moments shaped the style of photography forever. 1.[Liz Masoner (2019) A brief history of Photography and the Camera.]

On the other hand, the changes that digital photography has brought are widespread and on a global scale. The technology of digital cameras has made photography more popular and accessible to the masses. Because of this availability and affordability, a new era was born. This current generation has embraced photography as a way of documenting everyday life activities, with a growing number of social media platforms based on flaunting them. 2.[ Jonathan Ma (2018) The emergence of digital photography and its effects on society.]

So, all of this said, why is there being an indubitable resurgence in analog photography recently? With shortages of kodak film reels all around the world

and old basic originally 80-pound point and shoot cameras being sold for thousands of pounds, I couldn’t help but ask myself this question. If we seem to have everything we need at our immediate disposal in digital cameras, why would this be happening?

I interviewed a few Camera shop employees to see their views on the matter, and my first interviewee from `Mr. Cad Photographic´, a second hand analogue photographic store in London, confirmed there has definitely been an increase in sales in the recent years. She also told me she found interesting the fact that schools and educational institutions are coming back to their establishment, to show the students the world and processes of analogue photography after nearly twenty years of not paying them any attention.

Another of the subjects of my research, an employee at `Grays of Westminster’ a photographic store founded over thirty-five years ago, explained to me that until recently they had solely specialized in the sale of Nikon digital cameras, and they have currently started to sell 35mm cameras again due to this unprecedented market opportunity. A few more visits to various Camera shops confirmed this film photography phenomenon is taking place in all of them, and that they can’t even keep up with the demand.

After confirming the undoubtable resurgence there has been in film photography, my first reflection on the reason behind it is the obsession we human

beings have with nostalgia and the idealization we usually make of the past. In all generations, no matter who, everyone seems to agree that things were always better before at least in some way.

Another answer could be how at present we suffer from a constant oversaturation of information and there is an unprecedented mass production of digital images every millisecond, which may create the desire in us to go back to our roots, to a slower more thoughtful and challenging method of creating.

Think of something handmade versus machinemade. You know that the person that handmade it put thought and effort into it, there is a certain amount of craftsmanship for which you are willing to pay a premium price. Taking pictures with a film camera is similar. For one, not everyone can do it well. It takes much practice and experience to produce stellar film images that only come with shooting rolls and rolls of films, using different films and cameras. Each film type has its personality - a unique look. If you give a toddler a DSLR and they take 1,000 images in an hour, a handful is bound to be great images. The film reveals a photographer’s real knowledge, experience, and creativity, with only 24-36 frames available to take on a film roll. 3.

[Pino Shah (2021) 9 Reasons Why Film Photography Is Coming Back.]

Furthermore, a great deal of celebrities have publicly joined the analog camera using movement. Frank Ocean created a buzz when he shot the 2017 Met Gala with a film camera, giving fans a unique

glimpse into the uber-exclusive event. Later on, Timothée Chalamet brought a disposable camera to the Oscars and the Vanity Fair After Party in 2020. Additionally, notable names like Gigi Hadid and Tana Mongeau have had separate Instagram accounts devoted to their disposables for a while now, but they aren’t the only ones. 4. [Maya Dolan (2021) How Pop Culture Has Contributed To The Return Of The Disposable Camera.] Kendall Jenner virally showed The Tonight show host Jimmy Fallon her Contax T2 camera and it catapulted the prices to insane amounts. Now, the cheapest you can get it on Ebay is already at around $700.

5. [The Phoblographer (2018) The Contax T2 Price Tag Is About to Skyrocket to Asgard.] In the current situation with the social media craze, where celebrities and influencers hold a big position of power on the promotion of products and their success or fall in sales, especially among the young population, this type of cameras have quickly become trendy again and in consequence, have created an enormous increase in sales and a subsequent rise of prices, making analog cameras and film reels extremely expensive.

Nonetheless, in this day and age, especially having constant access to instantaneous methods of photography such as our mobile phone, this type of camera has become an investment of time, money and overall effort, which not everyone is willing to make, therefore I believe making this investment gives the owner of an analog camera a nice sense of reassurance of their commitment and love for the craft.

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Olympus MJU

Iphone 11

Analog vs Digital As part of my investigation and conitnuing with my primary research to inform my essay about the resurgence of film photography on the digital era, I took a field trip and spent an entire day out in Oxford testing my Olympus MJU point and shoot 35mm film camera with a Kodak Gold 400 film reel. I simultaneously took the exact same shots with my Iphone 11 dual lens camera, in order to create a side to side comparison of both the analog and the digital formats.

I wanted to see the differences you can achieve when using such different mediums; whith and enphasis in lighting, colour, sharpness, image quality and overall mood of the pictures.

I find the photographs taken with the Olympus camera have and special aura very difficult to emulate even with nowadays filters and editing technology. In my opinion, they seem much more moody and interesting due to the vintage feel of the texture and grain.

Olympus MJU

Iphone 11

Moreover, and this is a personal preference, I always shy away from very bright over-saturated greens, so I find the pinker tones of the analog photographs more appealing and they are easier on my eye.

Furthermore, the ones taken with the phone have that nearly real-looking HD quality, and the camera automatically fixes the exposure to make the pictures brighter and full of saturated colour which might be exactly what the majority of people

ask from a modern camera, but for me, this is what makes the Iphone pictures feel less special, and more ordinary. Also, this automatic exposure correction tends to leave very little contrast between light and shadow and makes the blacks of the picture turn grey and this further accentuates the overall greyness of the end result which I don’t find very flattering.

To sum up, I feel like the film photography overall looks more interesting than the digital one.

Photographer’s views I asked several assiduous photographers what they think is special about film photography and why it may be having a comeback nowadays.

“People are very nostalgic, they like to look at pictures from the past. Taking pictures in film is taking photographs in the style of the ones they took of us when we grew up. The pictures of our childhood were taken in film cameras and it reminds us of our childhood. Even the younger generation feels drawn towards the nostalgic feel of vintage items, they didn´t grow up with their pictures being taken on film, but they grew up with Instagram filters that try to emulate that vintage grainy texture and faded colours.” (Janine Coelho, May 2022) “Nowadays, with the mobile phones we take pictures all the time and it feels like pictures aren´t special anymore, there is not that much effort that goes into taking photographs, it is just something that our phones do and it has taken away the

special part of capturing moments. Film when we were younger was used as a way of creating special memories, using film is a return to taking effort, being patient because you can´t see the picture immediately, all that effort makes the process more meaningful, and the moments that you capture are a lot fewer and far in between, which makes them more special.” (Susana Alvarez, March 2022) “There is the physicality of taking film pictures because you get the film developed, they scan it and you get it printed, there is an actual negative and the image exists, the memory exists imprinted onto a negative in the moment when you press the shutter button, it exists in the real world, it is not just in the memory of your phone. The moment is made real, you can touch it, you can feel it.” (Jon Echeverria, March 2022)

Olympus MJU Photographs

CREATIVITY

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.”

Maya Angelou

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

1. Liz Masoner (2019) A brief history of Photography and the Camera.

Available at: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/brief-history-of-photography-2688527 (Accessed: 2 May 2022).

2. Jonathan Ma (2018) The emergence of digital photography and its effects on society. Available at: https://sleeklens.com/blog/photography-essays/the-emergence-of-digital-photography-and-its-effects-on-society/ (Accessed: 4 May 2022).

3. Pino Shah (2021) 9 Reasons Why Film Photography Is Coming Back.

Available at: https://www.artbypino.com/blog/film-photography-revival (Accessed: 23 May 2022) 4. Maya Dolan (2021) How Pop Culture Has Contributed To The Return Of The Disposable Camera. Available at: https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/ how-pop-culture-has-contributed-to-the-return-of-the-disposable-camera (Accessed: 5 May 2022) 5. The Phoblographer (2018) The Contax T2 Price Tag Is About to Skyrocket to Asgard. https://www.thephoblographer.com/2018/06/27/contax-t2price-tag-skyrocket-asgard/ (Accessed: 5 May 2022) Front and back cover featuring sculptures by artist Eduardo Chillida `The comb of the wind’ San Sebastián, Spain All photographs in the publication by Laura Chillida Alvarez