‘You only have one shot’: how film cameras won over a younger generation

[Mos6502]

I think Lomography helped get film through a difficult period.
I remember walking into a Ritz camera and the only black and white film they had was the Lomography stuff. They were getting film shelf space in places it otherwise would have been abandoned, even if it was through sheer force of marketing hype. Don't think, just shoot - I believe Daido Moriyama preaches a similar if not identical philosophy toward photography, and he seems to have done pretty well with a camera over the years. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Lomography plagiarized their slogan from one of his books. Lomography's hype machine also generated interest enough for other companies to have a go. Superheadz Blackbird Fly, and Golden Half were two interesting options, which sadly are no longer produced. Holga's life was no doubt extended considerably - and they probably wouldn't be available today if not for the lo-fi fad of a decade ago. The marketing repackaged film as alternative, rather than dead and dying, and that turned out to be prescient.

 

[Richard G]

I think Lomography helped get film through a difficult period.
I remember walking into a Ritz camera and the only black and white film they had was the Lomography stuff. They were getting film shelf space in places it otherwise would have been abandoned, even if it was through sheer force of marketing hype. Don't think, just shoot - I believe Daido Moriyama preaches a similar if not identical philosophy toward photography, and he seems to have done pretty well with a camera over the years. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Lomography plagiarized their slogan from one of his books. Lomography's hype machine also generated interest enough for other companies to have a go. Superheadz Blackbird Fly, and Golden Half were two interesting options, which sadly are no longer produced. Holga's life was no doubt extended considerably - and they probably wouldn't be available today if not for the lo-fi fad of a decade ago. The marketing repackaged film as alternative, rather than dead and dying, and that turned out to be prescient.

Well argued.

 

[Coldkennels]

The marketing repackaged film as alternative, rather than dead and dying, and that turned out to be prescient.

I've heard the same argument made a few times over the years. The problem I have with this is that they also repackaged film as an inherently lo-fi medium. Everything they showed the world - including, you have to remember, a bunch of kids who'd never used film before in any context and a lot of people whose last memories of film were god-awful prints from APS systems - presented film as unpredictable, blurry, and lower quality than digital. They also sold it at insanely over-inflated prices, and the combination of the way it was presented and the staggering ticket price made the cost/benefit balance really unappealing to a lot of people.

On top of all of that - and I can't stress this enough! - the majority of people who did get sucked into it burned out fast. Not only was film presented in a gimmicky way, but the total lack of education and growth meant there was nowhere for a lot of people to go after they'd got tired of Lomography's schtick.

Once you started to see the iPhone apps that replicated the Lomography "look", they started losing sales quick. It was somewhat telling that they changed the marketing around this time from "film" to "analog", and later the "analog lifestyle", eventually caving and selling "art lenses" for digital lens mounts. I remember getting their press releases around this time and laughing really hard. They were a company started by marketers, not photographers, engineers or artists, and it showed.

They burned brightly for a while, but their whole scheme had no long-tail, making them destined to fail in the end. And like I said earlier, I'm not sure they really did anything good for film photography overall, all things considered.

 

[Mos6502]

I think going for the lo-fi angle was a smart move. It certainly offered something that simply wasn't possible with digital at the time. Digital was going for more and more megapixels, more refinement, lomography was saying to hell with it, look at what you can do with film! It was marketing, yes, but if we're honest 99% of marketing is total BS anyway. Just like nobody becomes a great photographer because they spent thousands on Leica gear, nobody was guaranteed to make something interesting with a Lomo LC-A. Marketing is always more about selling potential and perceived value than anything else, in that regard there was nothing unusual about what the folks at lomography were doing. I do know people who stepped up to 35mm SLRs after playing with Holgas and Diana+ toys, so I wouldn't discount the whole userbase. Obviously a lot of those cameras saw one or two rolls and then went back in the box, but that happens to a lot of cameras regardless of brand anyway. What I do think they deserve credit for (and I don't believe they deserve credit for much, if anything else, despite my apparent advocacy here) was keeping film photography interesting for a few years when film use was falling rapidly and all predictions for the future of fillm were doom and gloom.

One thing I can nitpick them for is that for not much more money than an LC-A one could have had an honest to goodness 35mm SLR, and perhaps that hurt the future for high quality film cameras by siphoning off sales with a silly product, but then again, maybe Pentax, Canon, etc. should have marketed their film cameras as hard as the lomography people were. They didn't, and that's their fault.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I think the reason the "big guys" such as Pentax, Canon, etc. didn't market film cameras to compete with Lomography was that they recognized they couldn't compete with Lomography's "no muss, no fuss, no bother" promise of instant success. When you tell your market that light leaks, bad exposure, huge grain, and massive color shifts are "Art", why would anyone bother to use a camera, and take an approach to photography, that requires at least some knowledge of craft, or the medium's history as an art form?
Now, let me be clear. Grain, light leaks, etc. can be valid creative tools for someone who knows their craft, and knows when to use them. However, craft and tradition need to be learned before they can be abandoned, and I don't really think there are any shortcuts. But how could you fight the Lomography marketers who were appealing to the generation where everyone gets a trophy, and every scribble gets a gold star?

 

[jsrockit]

But how could you fight the Lomography marketers who were appealing to the generation where everyone gets a trophy, and every scribble gets a gold star?

Come on man... that cliche is so tired.

 

[K14]

I think the reason the "big guys" such as Pentax, Canon, etc. didn't market film cameras to compete with Lomography was that they recognized they couldn't compete with Lomography's "no muss, no fuss, no bother" promise of instant success. When you tell your market that light leaks, bad exposure, huge grain, and massive color shifts are "Art", why would anyone bother to use a camera, and take an approach to photography, that requires at least some knowledge of craft, or the medium's history as an art form?
Now, let me be clear. Grain, light leaks, etc. can be valid creative tools for someone who knows their craft, and knows when to use them. However, craft and tradition need to be learned before they can be abandoned, and I don't really think there are any shortcuts. But how could you fight the Lomography marketers who were appealing to the generation where everyone gets a trophy, and every scribble gets a gold star?

Number 1 for Lomography - Diana + "The light leak is coming to get you!"

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Come on man... that cliche is so tired.

Yes it is. But is it untrue?

 

[Andy Kibber]

Yes it is. But is it untrue?

If true it's the grownups who gave out all the trophies and gold starts. They have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[Andy Kibber]

Back to film -- in my small-medium sized Canadian city I have seen many, many more film cameras in the last few years than say ten years ago. Folks of all ages seem to accept film as a valid creative choice, rather than some weird deviation. Film is easier to buy here, although processing is still expensive and inconvenient unless you do it yourself.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

If true it's the grownups who gave out all the trophies and gold starts. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Totally in agreement!

 

[Coldkennels]

I generally scowl at the idea of "participation trophies"; like old men using the terms "woke" or "snowflake" as an insult, it tends to say more about the person uttering the phrase than it does about the subject of their derision.

However, there is a sliver of truth in it, but it's not a generational issue - it's a cultural one, and one I lay at the foot of postmodernism as an ideology.

If you have a lot of time to kill, have a dig into some cultural theory, because postmodernism is a mess. It teaches that everything has value, and everything has worth, regardless of how utterly banal it may be. It rejects the "elitism" of the likes of Adorno's high culture/low culture dichotomy, and says that classically-trained pianists are just as important as "outsider art", musically represented by the likes of Daniel Johnston, I suppose.

And that's what gives us the source of your ire, Retro-Grouch. And it also gives us Lomography, the photographic equivalent of child-like scribbles passing as art.

That's my rant done for the night. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow; I'm off to scowl at the walls.

 

[Mos6502]

Participation trophies are like Bigfoot. Nobody has ever seen one, but a lot of people swear they exist and are a real danger. 😛

I do find some of the comments interesting. Most photography is bad, and most photographers are bad. As per Sturgeon's Law. I think what irks some people is that they will put many hard hours into making something perfectly terrible, while somebody sold on Lomography can do it effortlessly.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I generally scowl at the idea of "participation trophies"; like old men using the terms "woke" or "snowflake" as an insult, it tends to say more about the person uttering the phrase than it does about the subject of their derision.

However, there is a sliver of truth in it, but it's not a generational issue - it's a cultural one, and one I lay at the foot of postmodernism as an ideology.

If you have a lot of time to kill, have a dig into some cultural theory, because postmodernism is a mess. It teaches that everything has value, and everything has worth, regardless of how utterly banal it may be. It rejects the "elitism" of the likes of Adorno's high culture/low culture dichotomy, and says that classically-trained pianists are just as important as "outsider art", musically represented by the likes of Daniel Johnston, I suppose.

And that's what gives us the source of your ire, Retro-Grouch. And it also gives us Lomography, the photographic equivalent of child-like scribbles passing as art.

That's my rant done for the night. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow; I'm off to scowl at the walls.

In agreement here as well. Although I think PoMo is as much a symptom as a cause. Or maybe, in that regard, our culture is now just trapped in a negative feedback loop. Much of what we're seeing began in advance of PoMo as an aesthetic ideology, with the Romantic era's invention of a new artist's identity as the Tortured Soul who sees beyond society's conventions. Fast forward to the avant garde as a consequence, and the enshrinement of the avant garde in Modernism. Postmodernism is the apple that has not fallen far at all from the tree.
There you have it, a synopsis of 250 years of cultural history in a three-line RFF post. I'm shocked at my own arrogance!

 

[jsrockit]

Participation trophies are like Bigfoot. Nobody has ever seen one, but a lot of people swear they exist and are a real danger. 😛

Yes, exactly. It is simply generations before thinking the latest generations are softer than them. This thinking has been happening forever. A whole generation of people cannot be exactly the same.

 

[joe bosak]

Thanks for the phrase "participation trophy", I hadn't heard that before.

 

[joe bosak]

I am now seeing a late 90s trend on Instagram where people are using those 1,2,3 MP early digital cameras. That was unexpected. About the article, it is the same old cliches about film again. Nothing new here. I see it in all analog. Plenty of audio cassettes out there now too. These things are cool and always will be. But believe me, there will be nostalgia for digital items too. We see it in video games, computers, etc. I am starting to see CD collecting becoming big now. It is all nostalgia even if you were not there the first time.

Yes, I'm a bit surprised about any interest below 3 or 4mp because that's the point where I decided digital compacts were more or less on a par with film (was using a 1024x768 monitor back then). But then again, look how much Fisher Price PXL2000s go for, there's even a company that renovates them and adds some functionality.

 

[Mos6502]

Speaking of primitive digital, the Game Boy Camera has a cult following. Though I suspect it is more for nostalgia than it is for artistic possibilities.

 

[zuiko85]

Yes, I'm a bit surprised about any interest below 3 or 4mp because that's the point where I decided digital compacts were more or less on a par with film (was using a 1024x768 monitor back then). But then again, look how much Fisher Price PXL2000s go for, there's even a company that renovates them and adds some functionality.

Perhaps they are not looking for the camera to be on par with film, but more a digital version of one use cameras or cheap 110 cameras with single element f11 plastic lenses. If it looks too good they think, might as well just use the phone camera.

 

[Evergreen States]

However, there is a sliver of truth in it, but it's not a generational issue - it's a cultural one, and one I lay at the foot of postmodernism as an ideology.

If you have a lot of time to kill, have a dig into some cultural theory, because postmodernism is a mess. It teaches that everything has value, and everything has worth, regardless of how utterly banal it may be. It rejects the "elitism" of the likes of Adorno's high culture/low culture dichotomy, and says that classically-trained pianists are just as important as "outsider art", musically represented by the likes of Daniel Johnston, I suppose.

You may be confusing the postmodern art movement with postmodern philosophy. Which theorist did you get this from?