Jump to content

Hipsters' interest in film cameras


Ornello

Recommended Posts

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I am not expressing any opinion on this here, just curious what others think about it. I see many 'young folks' and 'hipsters' haunting my favorite camera shop, talking about vintage cameras and buying them, and buying film. The hipsters have more money than the 'young folks' (some high schools around here offer film photography classes, and parents are buying 'student cameras' for their kids). The hipsters are a curious lot. More than any other group, they seem prone to rely on (often dubious) info they acquire from the internet and their friends.

The good thing is that it has stimulated interest in film and darkroom. The bad thing is that they are often not getting a good start on technique. (I sometimes listen to their conversations.)

Edited by Ornello
  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Ornello changed the title to Hipsters' interest in film cameras

I find hipster conversations as well as many of their choices in life to support their images boring at best. As you said, their buying film cameras stimulate film sales, which in my view is good. On the other hand, their not getting a good start on technique is a function of lack of focus (pardon the pun) and a reduced intellectual curiosity. I'm sure with a little more of both, some of them could produce truly outstanding works.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd argue your equally part of the problem as they are. 

Regardless what demographic, we were all obnoxious at one point and it is all part of the learning curve. You'll have hipsters, as much as you'll have humble amateurs or curious professionals, that all love to shoot film. 

People taking an interest in film is a good thing. Plenty of information online for them to learn proper technique, or they will be quickly corrected by others around them anyway. 

:)

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, maxfairclough said:

I'd argue your equally part of the problem as they are. 

Regardless what demographic, we were all obnoxious at one point and it is all part of the learning curve. You'll have hipsters, as much as you'll have humble amateurs or curious professionals, that all love to shoot film. 

People taking an interest in film is a good thing. Plenty of information online for them to learn proper technique, or they will be quickly corrected by others around them anyway. 

:)

Yeah, I used to be obnoxious in my youth. But I was never a hipster.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok there are some new people to dislike and sneer at, but I bet if they study photography they will study photographers first, no bad thing when they want to make a statement about life, leaving arguing about developers and such like to the lab technicians.

  • Like 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

This is an example of my point above.  It has nothing to do with 'Hipsters', it's what happens when a classic camera falls into the hands of a clueless clown who is more concerned with getting his 'insight' out there than he his about reading a manual first:

 

Edited by Ouroboros
Link to post
Share on other sites

I am happy to see younger folks using film cameras! The more the better.

A much younger guy than me came to buy my film scanner couple of months back. He wanted to start getting control of his workflow. We scanned a few of his negative together and it was great. 

Another one flashed me in the street one year ago with a disposable camera. We had a chat and he sent me the photo later on. 

I personally started exactly like them: picking up a film body, not knowing anything and started to shoot. 6-7 years later, I am still learning. 

Some of the YouTube folks however are indeed quite damaging!
 

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

This is an example of my point above.  It has nothing to do with 'Hipsters', it's what happens when a classic camera falls into the hands of a clueless clown who is more concerned with getting his 'insight' out there than he his about reading a manual first:

 

I couldn’t watch it entirely. I love how keeps rewinding and rewinding  after hearing the film moves out of the spool whilst blaming the camera for not letting any part of the leader out 😂. This part is worth watching 🤣.  I stopped there, better not spoil the fun. 

Edited by Aryel
  • Haha 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Aryel said:

I couldn’t watch it entirely. I love how keeps rewinding and rewinding  after hearing the film moves out of the spool whilst blaming the camera for not letting any part of the leader out 😂. This part is worth watching 🤣.  I stopped there, better not spoil the fun. 

If his method of extracting the take up spool with pliers made you cringe, you should watch his method of loading a new film.  

  • Haha 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I have had a camera with such a tight spool that I needed pliers to remove it. But I guess he has no fingernails to grip it as he had trouble opening the catch on the bottom of the camera.

I  feel as if I want to tell him to read the correct way to load a film, to start by cutting the correct leader. Then don’t remove or replace the lens in it’s collapsed position, it might bump into the rangefinder roller. And you don’t need to remove the lens at all, and don’t put your finger into the gate as the shutter might be damaged if it closes on your finger.

Read some books, read this forum, talk to someone. Don’t put something you don’t understand on the internet.

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

You’ve expressed your opinions, both directly and by implication, despite your opening disclaimer.

A ‘Hipster’ is a stereotype product of marketing; everything from gin to beard oil and tweed waistcoats is used to define a species that really does not exist  .

Ridicule is better directed at the hordes of bloggers, vloggers and YouTubers who spread misinformation, lack of creative ability and ignorance dressed up as ‘insight’, rather than at anyone who has a genuine desire  to use film, no matter how big their beard is. 

Most people with an interest in photography are self-taught and part of the learning curve is, and always has been, in finding out who to listen to.
 

The big problem for beginners is that the deluge of worthless garbage is more accessible and better disguised now than it was when most of us on this forum were starting out on our  journey of discovery, formally or otherwise.

 

 

 

 

Oh, hipsters are real all right. They seem to lack an identity of their own; instead, they 'absorb' fashions and attitudes from past eras, in a sort of superficial way. I know some of them personally. The other day I was at my favourite camera shop watching a youngish fellow buying a Beseler 23C. He was talking to the salesmen there about filing out the negative carrier. I had to bite my lip.....

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

This is an example of my point above.  It has nothing to do with 'Hipsters', it's what happens when a classic camera falls into the hands of a clueless clown who is more concerned with getting his 'insight' out there than he his about reading a manual first:

 

This guy is clueless. Why is he taking the lens off and messing with the shutter dial?

Hipsters are a kind of paradox: they spend all their time online and with their cell phones glued to their faces, but then feign a nostalgia for an era that lacked them.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I came a across a "Hipster" a few weeks ago, he was the stereotype, long hair, beard, denim jacket, leather messenger bag, rather than disparage and ignore I complimented him on the Rollei 35 he was carrying. You have no idea how thrilled he was to be recognized by a white haired fellow film shooter. I've always found it better to engage with people with the same interests as me rather than dismiss a whole group of them.

  • Like 14
Link to post
Share on other sites

What goes around comes around, as they say. I'm sure there are some people on the forum who wore a safari jacket in the 1970's (if not the Boer War) but they are fashionable again (no, the jackets are fashionable again), does that mean shaking the mothballs out of a safari jacket makes the owner a hipster? Cultural appropriation isn't anything new, Picasso said he didn't copy from the old masters but he stole from them. And the Lomography movement aimed at making film photography fun by stealing Grandads Diana is now at the ripe old age of 30, surviving without breaking into a sweat despite 'the end of film' when so many lightweights lost faith and sold their film cameras. Those 'kids' having fun in those years have kept film photography alive, and the enthusiasm has been passed to a new generation, so maybe getting onboard is the answer, even if you look like a hipster in a safari jacket, Leica, and pockets full of Tri-X?

(disclaimer - I don't have a safari jacket, yet)

Edited by 250swb
  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I had a safari jacket in the 70's, but then, I'd had their longstanding predecessors, the Norfolk jacket, before that. Don't see them anymore, at least, not in my circles!

It is a normal function of the aged to be irritated by youth. In fact, especially irritated by their youthfulness, which includes the qualities of ignorance and confidence in an unpleasant admixture, as we should know having all been unpleasant to our elders and betters when we were young.

I try hard to avoid being that person, but I do occasionally leave snarky comments on YouTube film camera videos made by stupendously ignorant youngsters who spread misinformation among the innocent. I'm delighted to share the obscure and arcane knowledge I've gleaned over the decades with any young enthusiast, but it makes me cross when ill-informed people set themselves up as experts and pretend to have the keys to knowledge and add here's my Patreon page.

When Dickens wrote:

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy...

He missed out a greater evil. Yes, even worse than the ignorant young, are the cynical old. Far worse than 'here's my Patreon page' is ' here's where you can buy my crocodile skin camera bag' etc. I can forgive ignorance, but not the wilful exploitation by those who are old enough to know better.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...