Soft images attract analogue lovers
IN APRIL, the 30th anniversary model of Utsurun-desu, a disposable camera produced by Fujifilm, sold 20 units in about three hours at the “on and on” camera shop based in Umeda Loft, a general store in Osaka, Japan. Customers who bought the camera were largely in their teens and 20s.
“Photos [taken on a disposable camera] are grainy and not too sharp. But a soft atmosphere [created by such photos] is only possible with analogue media,” said Yuko Fukushima, 24, who enjoys using Utsurun-desu frequently.
Fukushima is a photographer from Osaka, who teaches a photography class at the camera store. With a digital single-lens reflex camera hanging from her neck and an Utsurun-desu tucked in her pocket, she said her two cameras were used for different purposes.
The use of analogue-to-digital conversion in photography and music reproduction is increasingly popular with young people who favour the warmth created by analogue media over the sharpness reproduced by digital.
Today, the use of digital media has permeated every sector of society.
But young people are not merely developing a taste for seemingly nostalgic analogue material. They are finding it interesting to use digital technology and enjoy analogue contents in their own way.
The number of disposable cameras sold in the domestic market annually peaked at about 89.6 million in 1997, after which the figure started to decline. In 2012, about 4.3 million units were sold domestically.
At around that time, however, the popularity of disposable cameras started to increase among young people when well-known artists and others released analogue works on the internet and elsewhere. This trend is halting the reduction in the number of such cameras sold.
The revival of analogue
Today, social networking services are used as an internet platform for releasing artworks and others. By having film developed at a camera shop, people can get their photos converted into image data and have the data stored on CDs and other media. Then they can post the photos on their online social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Some people have sent messages to Fukushima on Instagram, telling her that they want to use disposable cameras themselves.
“Although analogue technology seems outdated, it appears to be having a renaissance now,” she said. “Many young people are attracted to the warmth created by using analogue – something absent in digital media.”
The renewed appreciation of analogue is also evident in the music industry.
In the 1970s, the number of vinyl records produced in the domestic market reached about 200 million. Due to the emergence of compact discs, however, the figure declined to about 100,000 in 2009.
This was followed by the growing trend of distributing music through the internet, leading to a reduction in the popularity of CDs. In turn, this trend gave rise to a renewed popularity of records. In 2015, the number of domestically produced records rebounded to about 660,000.
The revival of analogue music also comes with an evolution in music players.
A good example is the record player released by Sony in April. If connected to a computer that has the relevant software, the music data can be downloaded from the records and stored in a highresolution format that has a greater sound quality than that of CDs. The data can also be transferred to a portable device, so the music can be enjoyed anywhere.
The Sony record player is priced at about 60,000 yuan ($575). But some similar products that cost 10,000 yuan or less can also store data using a USB connection.
The cassette tape and the radio cassette recorder are also attracting renewed attention. This comes after European and US artists have released new works on cassette tape in recent years. The trend also seems to have influenced the Japanese market.
An event featuring the radio cassette recorder was held at Umeda Loft until May 17. Young people listened to music on radio cassette tape recorders.
“There’s frictional noise in cassette tape recordings, but I like that kind of realism,” said Yosuke Tsuda, 30, a company employee from Yao. Recently, a radio cassette tape recorder capable of creating digital recordings has been released.
The items displayed at the Umeda Loft event included about 300 cassette tapes and about 100 radio cassette tape recorders, all provided by Junichi Matsuzaki, 55, a collector from Tokyo. To young people, cassette tape recorders seem “cute,” he said, and they are becoming fashionable items.