Kids Today

Don’t let that flow of crystal wisdom streaking through my wavy mane fool you. It might not look it, but I’ve a finger pressed firmly to the pulse of today’s hip kid culture — not that it requires a degree in quantum gravity physics or anything. Today’s hip kids aren’t doing anything different than what yesterday’s hip kids did — they just shuffle the pieces on the game board and give it a new name. It’s not like anyone ever invents anything new.

That said, the whole cycle of ‘what’s old is new again’ seems to be tightening. It used to take a couple generations for trends to repeat themselves, but today’s hip kids are circling back to things I did as a hip adult — never mind the things I did as a hip kid. If the hip cycles get any tighter, whatever I did last Tuesday will be “in” again come Friday.

An example of this is the current trend of buying and using old point-and-shoot digital cameras.

As a young adult, I was always hip to emerging technology and impatient for it to get hip enough to give me what I wanted —a decent, yet affordable digital camera. But in those nascent days of 1991, a 1.3 megapixel Kodak DCS 100 cost as much as a pickup truck, which you would also need to purchase in order to lug the thing around. So, instead, I bought the first-ever Nikon film scanner and something called Photoshop 1.0 as “bridge products” to the hipness I ultimately sought. Come the mid-90’s, a barrage of thoroughly crappy, but semi-affordable digital cameras began to trickle onto the market, and I imbibed like a land shark at an all you can eat sushi bar. At the time, I was simply too hip for film — the bleeding edge of digital was surely where I belonged.

So when I heard that today’s kids were all abuzz over shooting vintage point & shoot digital cameras, I went rummaging through my bin of antiquity to see what, if anything, might have sudden pecuniary value. Unfortunately, since each new generation of 90’s digital camera tech would leapfrog the previous generation, I didn’t bother to retain most of my “obsolete and valueless” models.

I did, however, unearth a 1998 Kodak DC260. Though this was my fourth (or fifth) digital camera, it was the first one capable of taking a photo in which less than 20% of the pixels were just spurious digital noise. I popped in a fresh bundle of AA batteries along with one of my “massive” old 10MB Compact Flash cards. After a quick Google check to confirm that Photoshop could still crack open Kodak’s old proprietary file format, I anxiously fired off my first shot — hoping to see exactly what it was that so excites today’s hip kids. Instead, I was greeted by a screen of pure, unadulterated bokeh. So I snapped another… and another… until I eventually realized the camera wasn’t even attempting to move the lens into position and focus. Switching to manual focus had no effect. Time had turned the DC260 into a dedicated blur machine. For a brief moment, I attempted to mentally reframe this as a “feature” for creating a series of Rothko-like photographs… but, really, it was just hopelessly broken.

So I dove back into the antiquity tub in search of more ‘gems,’ eventually extracting my only other archaic digital artifact — a 2003 Canon Powershot S400. Unlike the DC260, the Canon uses proprietary batteries, of which I still had two. Although it took 24 hours to charge the first battery, I was delighted to see it could still power the camera. The first thing I did was reset the date and configure a couple menu options, after which the camera shut itself down and told me to “recharge the battery.” I then charged the second battery (another 24 hours) and snapped a photo from my window — an act that also completely drained the battery. 48 hours later, after recharging both batteries, I was ready for a photo walk — albeit a rather short one, what with only two shots available before the batteries would be spent.

Back in the comfort of home, I perused the day’s 2-photo bonanza of shots. What surprised me was that, in spite of the reduced resolution and ancient tech, the images were far more satisfying than the overly processed, plasticine crap the spews forth from my iPhone. The photos looked, for lack of a better word, ‘real’. That said, I doubt the image quality has anything to do with why hip kids are flocking to early digital point & shoots. It’s fashion driving their choices, not results… but still, it’s amazing how far we’ve fallen from the glory days when CCDs ruled the roost.

Although the old digital images were subjectively superior to photos from a modern smart phone, these hip retinas of mine still found them far less appealing than those produced by last year’s hip kid retro toy — the film camera. To this day, there remains nothing that satisfies my visual desires quite like a random dusting of silver halide crystals. Fortunately, cycles being as tight as they are, I suspect it’ll only be another few months until film cameras are again hipper than digital — albeit with some ‘twist’, like maybe it’ll be medium format that’s hip this time, rather than point & shoots.

Admittedly, while I do like to know what’s going on, I gave up chasing “hip” several decades ago. I don’t really care what’s in and what’s out (other than knowing what’s what lets me buy low and sell high). When it comes to photography, I’m rather certain I’ll be shooting b&w film for at least a dozen more hip cycles. So, while I began this article with the intent of showcasing some antiquated digital photos, the paucity of results necessitated that I do what I always do — populate it with analog photos that are even more antiquated. Who knows? If I keep doing this long enough, maybe this website will even be “hip” again. Stranger things have happened — like, say, this whole digital point & shoot trend.

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© 2024 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

As mentioned, in spite of the article being all about vintage digital cameras, the photos are all from film cameras — I guess I’m just not hip enough to cruise around town with a 20 year-old digital Elph and a bucket full of batteries.

Speed Dating was shot with a Fuji Natura Black 1.9 using HP5+ pushed to ISO 1600 in Microphen stock. I’d like to claim credit for the title, but when I stopped to compliment the kids on their creative act of hooliganism, they were the ones who told me they had dubbed this particular piece, “Speed Dating.”

Cthulhu View is from a cropped Widelux F7 negative, shot on Rollei RPX 100 @ ISO 100 and developed in Rodinal 1:50

Bad Bad Plant was photographed with a Leica M6TTL and a Minolta 28mm f/2.8 Rokkor lens, using HP5+ pushed to ISO 800 in Microphen stock. I claim no understanding of this scene. I just shoot ’em.

Duality was shot with a Fuji Natura Black 1.9 on HP5+, and pushed to ISO 1600 in Microphen stock.

Cannibal Holocaust is, perhaps, the most perfectly titled photo I’ve ever shot. However, if you haven’t seen Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 film, “Cannibal Holocaust,” then you’ll have no idea why. Word of warning: anyone not fully vaccinated against repugnantly graphic imagery is encouraged to remain cheerfully in the dark. Shot on a Leica M2 with a 35mm Summicron v4 using HP5+ @ ISO 400 and developed in Rodinal 1:50.

Sun Tau in Modern Times was photographed with an Olympus XA, on HP5+ @ ISO 400 and developed in Rodinal 1:50

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