Ditch that smartphone and enjoy the moment
Like film in a disposable camera, finite things are more precious
Aweek or two back now I attended the 20th birthday party of a friend. It was a quiet affair, a dozen or so of us relaxing on couches on the back lawn of a flat, soaking up the sun of a burgeoning summer.
On the table, amongst the cake and bottles, was something which I didn’t even know was still around — a disposable camera, one which shoots film. You know the ones, black with orange and red on them. Click, wind-- wind-wind. Wait to get the photos developed and then be gutted about how many of them didn’t come out.
I’d known for a while that film cameras were making a comeback. Social media has gradually become more densely littered with the telltale colour streaks and over/under exposure that techies have devoted their careers and lives to getting rid of for the last few decades.
So the disposable camera captured our afternoon and early evening in the sun in 27 shots, and it was a lot of fun, far more than taking photos on any of our dozen perfectly capable phones would have been.
I’m not so sure why film cameras have made such a reappearance of late. The first answer that springs to mind would have to be that their lower quality and skewed colours have this fantastic ability to seemingly Photoshop out all of your
flaws, flattering your ego greatly in the process. In a social media age, we all look a bit better in low definition, rather than the super ultra clear photos captured by the super ultra clear camera which scientists have crammed into your latest phone.
I bought a Polaroid camera earlier this year, and have got a heap of use out of it. It just feels nice to use.
Since then, I’ve also discovered an app you can buy which allows you to take photos on your phone camera in the style of a disposable film camera. It doesn’t just lower the quality, it also only allows you to take 24 photos a day, and then it makes you wait three days for them to “develop” before you can see them.
Yes, I’m serious. We’ve advanced to the digital age of unlimited, high quality photos, only for us to now pay money so that our photos can be blurry and we’re artificially locked out of them for three days.
But, the app exists because it captures the appeal of film cameras. The app is about as practical as the cameras themselves — temperamental, impractical, and eyewateringly expensive.
So why, then, are they popular? Why have they reappeared, long after people joked about the death of film, and danced on its grave while wondering how we ever got by being unable to shoot unlimited times?
What they capture, and what makes them feel good, is not the good looking people in the photos, nor is
Before the 2018 Grammy nominations were announced on Tuesday, many prognosticators thought the race for album of the year would boil down to two artists: British pop star Ed Sheeran for ÷ (Divide) and rapper Kendrick Lamar for DAMN. Sure enough, Lamar’s record made the list, along with Childish Gambino ( Awaken, My Love!); Jay-Z ( 4:44); Lorde ( Melodrama); and Bruno Mars ( 24K Magic). But Sheeran was nowhere to be found — although ÷ (Divide) is up for best pop vocal album.
Soon, the absence of Sheeran’s nomination led to a Twitter “moment”, as the social media platform announced that the “Grammys album category has no white men for the first time in 19 years”. However, that depends on how you view alternative rock band Garbage: While Shirley Manson is the lead singer, the group also includes Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker.
So if you count Garbage and check every other album of the year category since the Grammys started in 1959, this actually marks the first time in history that no white men have been nominated for the night’s biggest prize.
This is especially notable for the Grammys, which saw lots of criticism last year when Adele’s 25 won over Beyonce’s Lemonade. The year before that, Taylor Swift’s 1989 beat Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. And the year before that, Beyonce’s self-titled album lost to Beck’s Morning Phase.
“For the past five years, black artists have been making era-defining pop music,” Washington Post music critic Chris Richards wrote after last year’s Grammys show. “Then . . . each and every one of these artists loses to a white act doing less-challenging, lesstimely, less-imaginative work.”
In an interview on Tuesday with Variety, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow acknowledged the diversity of this year’s nominees and credited it to the large pool of voting members; there are about 13,000 overall. Plus, the Grammys opened up online voting for the first time this year, which led to a wider range of ballots than usual.
He also explained that Sheeran being relegated to the pop album category is not necessarily a snub but simply indicative of where the voters thought he belonged.
Abundance is no long-term solution. We can’t have as much as we want, for as long as we want. That’s not how life works.
We ought to make the most of moments, of the people, of the laughs, because we are numbered. They are numbered. As you wind through them, one day there will be a final click.
We all know this deep down, but we gloss over it day to day. Either because more pressing issues take centre stage, or because pondering mortality of loved ones and ourselves isn’t that enjoyable.
Yes, looking back on captured moments after they’re developed is great. But being present in these moments is key to truly appreciating the finite things in life.