Nostalgia as a contemporary concept of history

[Charlie Lemay]

All art, including photography is self-portraiture. Above all else, it shows what we notice, wat we are aware of. If what we notice, nostalgia, emulation, is what we already know from the past, then we are "asleep." I think Zen masters pointed this out many years ago... this is the dream from which we must awaken. The images that make a difference for each of us are the ones, that if we don't make them, no one else will ever get to see, our own unique personal vision.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

"I think Zen masters pointed this out many years ago"

Yep, to see the world as it really is, not as we think it was or imagine it to be.

 

[Roger Hicks]

We tend to love to misuse technology for nostalgia's sake. I remember the album Switched On Bach, which is wonderful. The interesting thing about it is IIRC the liner notes had a little interview with W. Carlos, and they expressed the advantage of being able to create completely new sounds with synthesizers that were not possible with traditional orchestral instruments. However from that point on it seems everybody was obsessed with making synthesizers sound as much like those instruments as possible, instead of using them to realize the full potential of the synthesizer to create new sounds.

Instagram + filters is simply using new technology to produce something that reminds us of old technology. Dare I say it - the Monochrom is basically the same idea, really just a use of new technology to approximate the look of an old technology. Funny eh?

Photography also went through Pictorialism, which is more or less the same thing. Using a new technology to approximate the looks/effects of older mediums.

Not everybody: cf. Isao Tomita.

Good analogy in the last para!

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . a Family Album of Gaea. Steichen's 1955 Family of Man exhibit generated not only a vastly influential anthology of photographs (my childhood introduction to some of the greats, and I expect for some of you as well), but an ethos of bearing witness to human commonality that can show us how to look (and live) beyond race, class, gender, age, violence, or whatever other ills or evils you care to list.

My definition of nostalgia: the past without the pain. A weakness for sentimentalizing people, places, things, events, coupled with a willingness to overlook difficulties, contradictions, destructions. Some earn nostalgia by living through enough awfulness and disappointment to deserve quiet images of unviolated landscapes, animal peace, macro-daffodils; most are old enough to have outlived many if not most of their own pretensions as well. They deserve the Voltairean 'cultivate your garden' retreat, or the spectacle of Monet's water lilies apart from the lifelong discipline it took Monet to reach that apex of expressive serenity. I don't expect them to be artists, or to care for any form of photography that is not serene. (I don't expect them to care for instagrams either, even if they adore their kids or grandkids who produced these throwaway images.). . .

Beautiful!

Cheers,

R.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

Transport: walk, run, horseback, car.......
Food: hunter-gatherer, farmer, sunday roast for the family, TV dinners, eating on the hoof....
Reading: Cave paintings, first basic alphabets, illuminated manuscripts, printing press, libraries, CD books, Kindle....

The main changes down the years tend to be convenience (the desire to fulfil the customer's wants / needs / desires as quickly and efficiently as possible) and speed to market. Technology has provided all manner of new options - some may even be improvements on their predecessors (but far from always).

Digital is an example of a parallel technology that satifies a need for one photographer but not necessarily for another. Personally, I don't see why one should be regarded as better than the other when it comes to the end result. Digital can, to my mind, only claim the upper hand when i comes to convenience and the capability to reproduce hundreds of identical prints from one file - whereas with film-based prints there will always be slight variations.

I don't feel the need to be nostalgic about film as I use it 80-90% of the time and absolutely love it.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I don't think digital is "better" than film. Or inferior for that matter, where absolute quality is concerned. Vinyl albums had a warmth missing in most digital; but, the convenience of my iPod Touch with 1,000 of my favorite albums always with me trumps the warmth of vinyl every time. In most cases, digital photos are "superior" for me for the same reason.

 

[Exdsc]

Today one has the options to shoot images that will have a life or images that are disposable.

Images shot without any care or thought will not force the viewer to care or think about them, those are disposable images, and a vast majority of phone-shots and shots with cellphone aesthetic fall into that category.

Communication with other people requires thought and care. And anyone who expects that by carelessly pointing the cellphone at something and clicking and then sexing it up with Instagram will make them visual communicators are wasting their time.

Lets look at the main communication tool that we've, language. If someone sits there and carefully writes a story with genuine effort to communicate, that story has a life, because it makes sense, its meaningful and its "understandable". On the other hand, scribbling random nonsense on napkins, without any effort to say something meaningful makes those scribblings useless and disposable writing. Most cellphone shots are scribblings on a colorful (Instagram) napkin.

Instead of lamenting the end of photography with all the cellphone garbage and fearing the end of photography and what not, what photographers need to do is go back to the basics. Try to make articulate and meaningful images where you're trying to say something, just try to make images that are understood by a fellow human being.

And forget about the money part, we don't have to make money in everything that we do.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Exdsc, but we do have to make money from some things we do. And with technology reaching into every area of human endeavor, it will eventually take most of us out. Whether you have empathy for those of us who have made a decent living as photographers or not, or those who wish they could, you and your job are likely not beyond technology's reach.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Analogue photography often is compared with painting, as it hasn't disappeared either, but in fact it's more like copper etching.

That's a very good comparison and in more ways than one. Around here, when anyone writes the word "photography", I'm sure that everyone thinks "portrait", "landscape" or whatever. But photography has been used, as has copper etching, just as much for industrial processes like printing, making circuit boards and creating integrated circuits.

So just as the two guys currently painting my house are well paid tradesmen, another person using the same tools and materials may be a starving, or less likely, a successful "artist".

It's not the tool, it's the relationship between the user and the audience which defines "art".

 

[OurManInTangier]

It's not the tool, it's the relationship between the user and the audience which defines "art".

Forgive me if I haven't fully grasped the subject in hand but this point sums up quite well my feelings on my interpretation of some of what's being discussed.

I've read various posts by PKR here at RFF talking about some very good documentary work being captured on smart phones (as well as other digital alternatives) and one would expect nostalgia to be no part of this type of work.

It appears to me that technology provides an outlet for the masses, one that is taken up with relish by most, yet whatever medium or tool is used it is the 'artist' ( a term I'm using as a coverall) who determines the intent, content, ability and voice that their images provide.

In the same way some use social networks to share knowledge, news and information on what is happening in their sphere whilst others use the same technologies to share boozy pics of friends or banal comments on what they're eating for dinner that night.

...and Peter, I'm glad someone else thought the 'nostalgia isn't the same as it used to be' comment was worth a smile.

 

[Yokosuka Mike]

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic:

I enlisted in the Navy in 1973, I was 17 years old; I was eager to see the world. Ask me who the President was or the Vice President at that time… couldn’t tell you, didn’t care.

All through the 70s and 80s I was barely conscious of who was the President or Vice President of the United States. I couldn’t even tell you who was in the Super Bowl, NBA finals or any other significant event. I was focused on doing my job. Work was everything, dedication to work, pride and professionalism, not letting my coworkers or superiors down; getting the job done was the only thing that was of importance.

Nobody else that I worked with gave a shit about politics. What we cared about was work (above all else), cold beer, and girls (high emphasis on girls). Nothing else mattered.

During these marvelous wonderful years I traveled the world, made many good friends, had some incredible adventures, got drunk, got laid, got hungover, got the best memories a man could ask for. I had fun!

So… what happened? How did the world change so much? How did people become so enamored with politics?

We used to have a good thing going… work hard, make money, have a good time. I had friends of every color and persuasion. There was no left or right, red or blue… there were only good hard working people that had the dream - the dream of a better life.

Now look at us. Can’t talk to each other, can’t sympathize, can’t empathize, can’t communicate. WTF?

Well, well, well, well… I’m not happy but I’ll get by. I’ll shake my head, but I won’t cry. However, I’m so glad that I had a non-political experience in the prime of my life.

That’s all folks… sorry if you read all this and found my ramblings disappointing!

All the best,
Mike

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

* * *

So… what happened? How did the world change so much? How did people become so enamored with politics?

* * *

All the best,
Mike

In a few words, social media.

In the spirit of RFF, I'm not addressing the politics of this.

I never really appreciated the power of social media to affect the lives of individual people. However, for the past year, I've been representing (I'm a lawyer) two people who were the targets of a campaign of harassment and defamation by a social media "influencer" with a following of about 2 million. Suffice it to say, I do not now underestimate the power of social media to destroy people's lives.

 

[Dogman]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. For me anyway. I've come to believe everything past, present and future is right now.

A white kid growing up in the rural South. Prejudice was the norm. Going to college and opening the mind. Meeting people who were different and okay. Just folks. Getting a job, another and another until Social Security requirements are met. Staying home a lot, traveling a little (but never that far). Interest in current events, bogging down in the minutiae of too much information. Newspapers, internet, opinions, "fake" news, leaders who lie, bad guys out there, good guys are the quiet type I guess. Lots of opinions, too many, too much. Taking pictures...forget the shit, make something important. To me anyway. Autofocus vs manual focus, rangefinders vs SLRs, Leitz/Leica vs Zeiss, Canon vs Nikon, film vs digital. Too much information. Too many opinions. "Fake" news. Head spins. The Who sings "people forget". Forget.

Politics. Cameras. Opinions. Hate speech. 30-06. Democrat/Republican. People forget. Normal. Just normal. The Who sing "bullshit" and "people forget". We listen. We don't listen. Normal.

This is not normal. I have the tee shirt.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.








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[Rayt]

As an American I lived outside the US for most of my post education adult life and was fortunate to have traveled to and worked in nearly every country in Asia and a few more in Europe. To quote that movie: I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I only wish I had taken up photography earlier. Everything was “normal” until I moved back to the US did I get overwhelmed with media bombardment of vile politics. They come from everywhere from local news to posts from FB friends, every word loaded like a weapon. From a perspective of a person who has been away from all of this for decades none of the talking points from either side make any logical sense. Seems people are hypnotized. I wonder if I want to be here. A beach in Thailand makes more sense for me to retire.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Everything was “normal” until I moved back to the US

Which goes to prove that "you can't go home again".

 

[p.giannakis]

Which goes to prove that "you can't go home again".

Very true 👍

 

[p.giannakis]

I love nostalgia. It's my favourite past time in winter. I have a friend who also ruminates on the past a lot, so we are a good match.

My main vehicle is a folder full of memorabilia from my youth - anything from my nursery certificate to my children's birthday wishes. I open it every now and then to see what I can discover. I have found things like train/boat/airplane tickets of places I visited at university, love letters, the diaries I kept whilst in the army, announcements from the University notice board, etc.. I can't believe I was so dedicated to keep all those things...



Another popular vehicle for nostalgia are the three drawers of slides that I have showcased in here. The last- but not least - are my photography magazines collection. I only have about 30 here from 1994 and 1995 but there are about 150 still in my parent's house and I am trying to bring them here. I can spend a morning reading old, out-dated news from the late 80s/early 90s.

 

[Miles.]

This scene in Mad Men, the show about the advertising business in the 60s, where the protagonist is tasked with creating a marketing campaign for Kodak’s new slide projector is a great example of what this thread is trying to interrogate:

 

[Archiver]

We are just snapping too many photos in the present to have time to look at those from the past. I suspect there will come a period of time, though, when people finally get tired of snapping photos constantly and photography becomes dormant for a while, to be "rediscovered" after a decade or so.

This comment aged like the proverbial milk. 😆

People take even more images today than they did in 2012, when the original post was made. Digital compact sales went down so much that most companies no longer produce them, and yet the desire for neo-retro digicam photography has grown to the point where the Kodak name is placed on cheap Chinese digicams. Some people chase the digicam look in the same way that others chase the look of film. The nostalgia cycle is growing shorter and shorter to match attention spans, it seems.

It's only been five years since the pandemic of 2020, but some are already nostalgic about it, for better or worse. What's wild is that 2012 is thirteen years ago, when for many, it only seems like a few.

 

[Archiver]

This scene in Mad Men, the show about the advertising business in the 60s, where the protagonist is tasked with creating a marketing campaign for Kodak’s new slide projector is a great example of what this thread is trying to interrogate:

I believe it was @peterm1 who introduced me to this scene, via a post on RFF. It is so powerful and just ahhhhh I love how it encapsulates the emotional underpinnings of nostalgia, and its creation through technology. It also has beautifully captured 'candid' photography, too.