It seems what’s popular these days amongst millennials and Gen Z is buying old iPhones to take pictures. I guess these folks don’t want the latest and greatest in imaging technology that Apple has to offer? An iPhone 7 offers a comparatively nostalgic look in its photo processing, yet still has enough megapixels to do prints. (I remember it was around the iPhone 7 era that I was able to use photos taken with the phone in making calendar-sized prints.) I often see on social media people carrying two phones: an older iPhone strictly for photography, and a modern one for everything else.
I can understand why. Honestly, I am not a fan of how the modern iPhone processes its photos. It’s too sharp, too crunchy, too much HDR. Computational photography deserves kudos for what it can do with such a small camera sensor in smartphones, but at some point it gets to be a bit too processed, a bit too perfect. A photograph’s job is to be evocative, to elicit an emotional reaction. A direct technical copy of how a scene is in real life is not a requirement. A black-and-white picture taken from the real world of color is a great example of this notion.
It seems nostalgia and retro-ness always have a place. What was once old becomes new again. Just look at the return of bell-bottoms and baggy pants (that was the fashion of my high school days). We all think a decade ago were better times: we were objectively younger, with less ingrained responsibilities. The photographs from that time have a certain look, which explains why people are buying older phones (and cameras) to replicate that feel.
The instant film - be it Polaroid or FujiFilm Instax - will never go out of style, even though smartphones have surpassed it in technical image quality a long time ago. It’s the look that people want: a feel that isn’t of this reality, because our reality it too burdensome to bear. That’s how instagram came to its immense popularity, isn’t it? Nostalgic filters to make a photo look not of this present. I too have rose-tinted fondness for the early days of instagram.
Late night snacking.