A photographer and a travel blogger reflect on the digicam revival and photography.
Point-and-shoot digicams are achieving popularity once again, especially for Gen Z. But it’s not just digicams, other retro devices are popping up on the radar such as film cameras, camcorders and even early generation mobile phones.
Photography has evolved over time, once starting out as a specialized profession and turning into a mainstream hobby. Rapid innovation has also turned almost everyone into a photographer, but not everyone is a master of the craft.
The bane of AI photography
Take Patrick Mateo, a professional photographer for almost 20 years, who specializes in food and product shoots as well as corporate portraits for both editorial and commercial clients.
With the current smartphones making it easy to produce shots similar to a professional camera, he shares that some Gen Z enthusiasts are now tired of seeing the consistent, high quality photos that come from phone cameras, making them look all the same.
“Hindi ganyan ang kuha ng mga point-and-shoot cameras dati,” explains Mateo. He adds that the lack of technical superiority of these digicams actually make them more appealing.
He also notes that developments in technology have flattened the learning curve for aspiring photographers.
“Technology sometimes dulls your creativity. The filters on IG and Lightroom can be used to tweak your shots on your phone,” states Mateo, “You just shoot it and you tweak it to death until you find something that you like.”
Mateo had his personal experiences of owning a digicam, which he occasionally used for his more artistic projects. Capturing photos from a digicam allowed him to explore its minimal controls and come up with out-of-the-box concepts.
“I remember, since my digicam was so small, I placed the lanyard and set the camera into night mode. I set up a timer and spun the camera using the lanyard. I came up with these unpredictable light streaks with different results,” said Mateo.
Point-and-shoot digicams: banking on nostalgia and curiosity
Marky Ramone Go, a travel writer who documents his adventures through his blog, Nomadic Experiences, also shares similar insights.
Go highlights that nostalgia and social media trends have become the main influence in sparking Gen Z’s curiosity and renewed interest for items from the 90s and early 2000s such as film cameras and vinyl records.
During his early days in travel blogging, he utilized a point-and-shoot and then eventually switched to a smartphone. Regardless of equipment, Go would focus on composition and story framing.
“Advances in technology have significantly narrowed the gap between smartphone cameras and high-end cameras, making it more about the photographer’s vision and skill in framing a story,” explained Go.
Regardless of equipment and gear, both Mateo and Go agree—the perfect photo lies in the creativity and vision of the person behind the lens, be it a cutting-edge state of the art smartphone or a flimsy digicam.
Technology has turned almost everyone into a photographer, but the charm—and the limits—of an old digicam has its own appeal.
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