Hipsters' interest in film cameras

[Pyrogallol]

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I recall being instructed that in classical Greece circa 4/300bc the older generation were moaning about young people.

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[SoarFM]

 

Would a hipster take tips from this guy?

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But in all seriousness, I’m glad that the “hipsters” and others have embraced film photography.  

When I was a young man and film is all there was, there was an active contingent (still are) involved with “alternative processes”  They made some beautiful work too.

Should you ever find  the opportunity to talk with a “hipster” with an AE-1 over his shoulder you should try to interest them in the history of the medium. Not the cameras, but the photographers and their work. They might even become inspired by the work of the guy pictured above! I know I was.

[Ornello]

4 hours ago, Pyrogallol said:

I recall being instructed that in classical Greece circa 4/300bc the older generation were moaning about young people.

I'm not complaining about them. I just wish they'd develop their own identity instead of copying every fad of the past century.

[Ornello]

6 hours ago, chrism said:

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.

As I said before, what is paradoxical is their use of modern media to disseminate their opinions and tips on 'obsolete' stuff that they have not a clue how to use. All they know is what they see the internet, posted by some 'influencers', whatever that means, who are equally clueless. The whole thing is 'social', not scientific, if you know what I mean.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Ornello

[spydrxx]

22 minutes ago, Ornello said:

As I said before, what is paradoxical is their use of modern media to disseminate their opinions and tips on 'obsolete' stuff that they have not a clue how to use. All they know is what they see the internet, posted by some 'influencers', whatever that means, who are equally clueless. The whole thing is 'social', not scientific, if you know what I mean.

I wouldn't go so far as to condemn them all, as there are outlier conscientious curious ones who will take the time to educate themselves. It's just that they seem to be the "nerds" of my baby-boomer generation.

[Ornello]

1 minute ago, spydrxx said:

I wouldn't go so far as to condemn them all, as there are outlier conscientious curious ones who will take the time to educate themselves. It's just that they seem to be the "nerds" of my baby-boomer generation.

I don't condemn them. I am just puzzled by their unscientific approach to things.

[frame-it]

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10 minutes ago, Ornello said:

I am just puzzled by their unscientific approach to things.

that's how new Styles and possibly Genres are created..trial and lots of errors

 

[Rona!d]

Am 8.1.2022 um 15:58 schrieb Ouroboros:

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:

 

Now that wasn‘t much entertaining but highly educational and I watched till the end. Ever me the film old school guy learned a lot. No hammer drill used for replacing the film, only pliers and getting the lens off without a metal saw really works. All the other little tricks I have never learned. Priceless.

Since technical instructions get digitally copied over and over again in the www I‘m really curious if one day we‘ll find his instruction being the „official“ way to replace a film in a screwmount. He mentioned his name in the video, so this method might even get his name in the Leica screwmount history books.

A couple of years ago a young employee in a „camera shop“ sold me a film and I asked him if he would like to put it into my IIIa. He was completely clueless how to do that. I didn’t blame him for that. Not his core job. We did it „together“ and he liked learning something new. Today he would probably take the camera „backstage“, switch on Google or Youtube on his cellphone and come back with body and lens separated. He‘d have to watch at least four videos: 1) Which film for a Leica 2) this video 3) how to get the lens off 4) how to use pliers.

[Anbaric]

This one claims he bites the film, then tears the leader with his bare hands ("It doesn't look nice but it works."):

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Anbaric

[Anbaric]

This one goes to the trouble of using a cutting template, but then slices through the last sprocket hole and leaves it damaged:

 

[Brancbūth]

On 1/8/2022 at 3:15 PM, Ornello said:

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.....

I don't understand your mode of thinking here. Hipsters "lack an identity of their own" and "'absorb' fashions and attitudes in the past?" How else is an identity or preference formulated but by exploring existing aesthetic and intellectual ideas? It's scaffolding. Are facets of your identity not informed by previously-established ideas which have inspired you? Some may be less creative in their adaptation or transformation of these ideas-- some may be ill-advised or attention-seeking, but it's hardly a reason for resentment. I haven't been able to gather just what you think the modus operandi of a "hipster" is, and it seems that many of your conclusions about these people whom you overhear in your "favourite camera shop" are simply projections: "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." That's quite an overgeneralized claim. All of them? All nostalgia feigned? All of them glued to their phones? The disdain that you display for these "hipsters" seems to signal the same pretentiousness in you. Does that make you a hipster?

 

As far as your criticism of filed negative carriers-- the darkroom run by my local community college has a selection of both filed and unfiled carriers. In speaking with some of the students, it seems that their instructors are specifically requesting that they use the filed carriers in an effort to help them in experimenting with borders. The reason for your "biting your tongue" regarding filed carriers eludes me.

 

I don't mean any of this with any level of disrespect-- it's all just very confusing. I remember as far back as 15 years, my peers complaining about "hipsters," when the social climate and dynamic with technology was drastically different than it is now. I knew some of those people, and many of them weren't even on the internet. If we had phones, they were browser-lacking flip phones. Are these the same hipsters? There was a generation of "hipsters" during the beat era in the 40's-60's. Is this an extension of that movement? Is it just a common ideology? What is a "hipster?"

Edited January 10, 2022 by Brancbūth

[Simone_DF]

I'm sure somewhere on the internet there's a forum of young photographers with a thread that is exactly the mirror of this one, but making fun of boomers and people who post questions like "which bag shall I use with my Leica?", "what about straps?", "are black lenses ok on silver cameras?", "do you cover your red dot?", "is black more stealthy?" etc.

[Guest Nowhereman]

4 minutes ago, Simone_DF said:

I'm sure somewhere on the internet there's a forum of young photographers with a thread that is exactly the mirror of this one, but making fun of boomers and people who post questions like "which bag shall I use with my Leica?", "what about straps?", "are black lenses ok on silver cameras?", "do you cover your red dot?", "is black more stealthy?" etc.

I certainly hope so.
_______________________________________
Frog Leaping photobook and Instagram

[frame-it]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

people who post questions like "which bag shall I use with my Leica?", "what about straps?", "are black lenses ok on silver cameras?", "do you cover your red dot?", "is black more stealthy?" etc.

yes its right here

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/forum/216-leica-m-system/

 

[Ornello]

3 hours ago, Brancbūth said:

I don't understand your mode of thinking here. Hipsters "lack an identity of their own" and "'absorb' fashions and attitudes in the past?" How else is an identity or preference formulated but by exploring existing aesthetic and intellectual ideas? It's scaffolding. Are facets of your identity not informed by previously-established ideas which have inspired you? Some may be less creative in their adaptation or transformation of these ideas-- some may be ill-advised or attention-seeking, but it's hardly a reason for resentment. I haven't been able to gather just what you think the modus operandi of a "hipster" is, and it seems that many of your conclusions about these people whom you overhear in your "favourite camera shop" are simply projections: "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." That's quite an overgeneralized claim. All of them? All nostalgia feigned? All of them glued to their phones? The disdain that you display for these "hipsters" seems to signal the same pretentiousness in you. Does that make you a hipster?

As far as your criticism of filed negative carriers-- the darkroom run by my local community college has a selection of both filed and unfiled carriers. In speaking with some of the students, it seems that their instructors are specifically requesting that they use the filed carriers in an effort to help them in experimenting with borders. The reason for your "biting your tongue" regarding filed carriers eludes me.

I don't mean any of this with any level of disrespect-- it's all just very confusing. I remember as far back as 15 years, my peers complaining about "hipsters," when the social climate and dynamic with technology was drastically different than it is now. I knew some of those people, and many of them weren't even on the internet. If we had phones, they were browser-lacking flip phones. Are these the same hipsters? There was a generation of "hipsters" during the beat era in the 40's-60's. Is this an extension of that movement? Is it just a common ideology? What is a "hipster?"

Any instructor who would advocate filing out negative carriers is unqualified to polish my Summilux lens-cap. What on earth does 'experimenting with borders' even mean?

What is a 'hipster'?

They're getting on in years now, but they seem to be yearning for a time past that they 'missed out on'. The recent fad for buying 'vinyl' is a perfect example. Then there are the older ones, some of whom are 'creatives' (yes, a noun) in advertising agencies, who wear ponytails with what's left of their hair. LOL They also have a quirky item of apparel or shoes, to let you know that they are 'creative'. They wish they could have been at Woodstock, or Haight-Ashbury with 'the plane' or The Dead, or with MLK, or RFK's campaign.

As far as vinyl is concerned, I used to own 1200 LPs. I sold every one as soon as I could get a CD player.

The hipster cares more about what people think than what science can verify. I think it goes back to childhood. Recent generations have not had the kinds of toys I had, which required active participation, assembly, etc. Doing things with your hands teaches you about cause and effect. Putting things together and taking things apart stimulates parts of the brain differently than watching TV or video games.

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Ornello

[stray cat]

26 minutes ago, Ornello said:

Any instructor who would advocate filing out negative carriers is unqualified to polish my Summilux lens-cap. What on earth does 'experimenting with borders' even mean?

 

 

I can’t speak directly for those instructors, but at a guess I’d say ‘experimenting with borders' means something like “keep your mind open to possibilities, don’t feel that there’s only one way to do things, despite the dictates of those who would suggest otherwise”. They would be very good instructors in my opinion.

And polish your own summilux lenscap.

[mikemgb]

1 hour ago, Ornello said:

Any instructor who would advocate filing out negative carriers is unqualified to polish my Summilux lens-cap. What on earth does 'experimenting with borders' even mean?

 

 

 

How else am I going to print the sprocket holes after I run a roll of 35mm through my 828 Kodak Bantam?

There’s a lot more to photography than the perfectly exposed, perfectly focused museum quality print. 

[Ornello]

1 minute ago, mikemgb said:

How else am I going to print the sprocket holes after I run a roll of 35mm through my 828 Kodak Bantam?

There’s a lot more to photography than the perfectly exposed, perfectly focused museum quality print. 

No there isn't. Craftsmanship!

 

 

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[adan]

ON TOPIC!

Not that different in 1980.

In the hospital photo lab where I had my first real job, we had a big wall poster of "what the well-dressed Art Director wears."

Something like the link below, except based on a studio photograph, and with call-outs for each required "fashion accessory."

https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/hipster-character-with-hipster-elements-gm820610406-132662877

Carried on the hip (pun intended) was the de riguer hip camera - a brassed, black-paint, plain-prism Nikon F.

(BTW - while I worked there I also used TWO brassed, black-paint, plain-prism Nikon Fs - but avoided copying any of the other fashion tips on the poster. )

I kinda think people haven't changed that much. It is just that the self-published internet has opened our eyes, world-wide, as to what some people actually get up to (and have for most of history - only the tech or styles change).

Which for many has come as an unpleasant "culture shock," in a wide variety of ways (some of which we don't discuss here.)

[Rona!d]

Am 10.1.2022 um 00:21 schrieb Anbaric:

This one claims he bites the film, then tears the leader with his bare hands ("It doesn't look nice but it works."):

 

Takes him 20 (!!!) seconds to open the bottom plate!