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Film cameras, instant cameras and cassette players suddenly became popular among young people. We figured out how old devices got a second life and why the new generation likes them.
The development of digital technologies has greatly simplified our lives. For the last 10 years, everything we need (a book, a game console, a camera, a camcorder) can be found in one device – a smartphone.
But the generation of zoomers, people who were born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, are increasingly abandoning modern devices in favor of analog, creating a trend for the technique that was popular in the youth of their parents.
Why do those who grew up with mobile phones in their hands prefer to shoot on film and try to figure out how the “soap box” works?
Fashion and aesthetics of the 1990s
The revival of the trend for analog technology began with the return of the style of the 1990s and 2000s to fashion. In recent years, designers have begun to miss the era of acid hues, pagers, consoles and crazy raves and began to include leopard coats, neon dresses, bike shorts and chunky multi-colored sneakers in their collections.
And the youth, who used to actively criticize the outfits of their parents in their youth, began to repeat the images from their old photo albums. Along with the design vogue of the 1990s and 2000s, the aesthetic of photographs taken on film and snapshots also returned.
First of all, this was facilitated by Fujifilm, which launched a new product on the market (and for some it has long been a familiar product) – the Instax instant camera. It is somewhat similar to Polaroid cameras, which were probably used by those whose youth passed in the early 1990s.
In 2016, the company managed to sell more than 5 million of these bright miniature cameras. According to research by European CEO magazine, the main buyers of Instax are representatives of the younger generation.
A little later, Ilford, one of the largest film manufacturers, noted that young people have become actively interested in analog photography: the number of buyers of their film under the age of 35 reached 30% of the total number of buyers in 2016. And from year to year this figure is only growing.
A sense of exoticism and an element of surprise
German psychologists Miriam Lertscher, David Waibel, Simon Spiegel and Barbara Flückiger associate the young generation’s fascination with analog photography with a sense of the exotic.
Modern teenagers have not found the times when the “soap” or “Polaroid” were the main photo devices: they are familiar only with digital cameras and mobile phone cameras.
And because of this, the shooting process, when you don’t know whether the shot turned out and whether the photo was lit up, and then you also wait for development, seems incredibly unusual and exciting to them.
The basis of the interest of zoomers in film is the element of surprise and the desire to capture a unique moment that digital models cannot provide.
The element of surprise lies in the fact that you never know what frame you managed to capture and how the film will behave. The result comes as a surprise. Added to this is the waiting factor while the picture is developed. And waiting is half the fun!
In addition, many young people in analog technology are attracted by the fact that the number of frames with this approach is limited. With film cameras, you can’t take a hundred identical shots or selfies, and then choose the best ones. There is only one attempt to capture the moment, which from this becomes even more valuable.
Pino Shah, a photographer who specializes in shooting on film, believes that the use of analog technology even has a meditative effect and helps young photographers learn responsibility and concentration: “Shooting on film is like a common saying: “Measure seven times, cut once.”
What’s next?
Further – more, shows the demand for analog cameras. According to German researchers from Statista, sales of film cameras and instant cameras increase by 20% every year.
And journalist and traveler Sergey Korol notes that film photography has already become an alternative hobby, the number of fans of which is only growing, and, perhaps, soon the younger generation will no longer consider it “retro-exotic”.
We may soon see a resurgence of pagers and disc players. Who knows how the changeable fashion for retro will turn?