We Have to Preserve Analogue Photography
Why we need to save analogue photography from oblivion in the technology era.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love to see progresses in photography: mirrorless cameras, bigger sensors in smaller camera bodies, new lens, new software… And I use it in my photos, with moderation. In my opinion, digital enhance is supposed to be like make up, but not plastic surgery. If you know what I mean.
In the middle of this amazing progress, analogue photography has been forgotten and ignored. Most people think that analogue photography is just old fashioned, obsolete; that we have to walk forward and let old films and cameras behind. And, in my opinion, that’s a mistake. It seems to me such an awful way of thinking as saying that drawing and painting is obsolete.
Because technology makes photography easier: image stabilizers,auto focus, zoom lens and lots of gadgets that let us take the photo we want to. And if something doesn’t go as expected, we can use all sorts of editing software to get the perfect image. Yes, that is absolutely amazing. So… Why we would even care for an old camera?
Because it keeps something very special: the human factor. I have already quoted Ansel Adams in a previous post, to say that every single of our circumstances are unconsciously reflected in our photographs. These little details make every picture different depending on who took it, and this singularity makes those photographs even more beautiful.
And, eventually, that reflection makes photographs become a mirror, and not a window as we thought. We can even compare the society and the photography, because they are not that different. Doesn’t matter if people or pictures: the ones that appear in magazines and TV are beautiful, more than the average, and you can admire them. However, something is missing in those, in their beauty; something makes them artificial, alien to us. But the ones that are in your life, the ones that have a natural, spontaneous beauty are the ones that really cause true emotions in us.
In the end, photography isn’t that different from life.
