The appeal of film cameras (digital vs. analog pt. 2)

In my previous post, I discussed how products, services, and whole industries have shifted from analog to digital, and how this move is almost inevitable in current day.

That’s because digital forms are far more quick and efficient. It takes seconds to search up a song on Spotify, take a photo with your phone, make a reservation for a restaurant, or quickly Google something to factcheck an arrogant relative.

Digital forms are also much more accessible, as you only need your computer/phone and the internet to do a multitude of things, things that previously required their own mediums and devices (like paper for a book, film for photos, vinyls for music). This accessibility allows for people to contribute to and gain from the existing pool of knowledge, products, and services.

In that post, I spoke mainly about digital forms. Here I’ll talk about the analog side of the story, and we’re going to use some psychology to provide perspective on why we might still use analog.

Clearly there are a lot of benefits with going digital. It’s easier. But one thing I found myself thinking about with that post was: then why do the analog forms still exist?

You could phrase it this way. Why, in some cases, do we value slowness and inefficiency over ease of use?

Analog forms have not disappeared. Film photography has resurged as a popular hobby. Christopher Nolan (of Inception and The Dark Knight fame) chooses to shoot his movies predominantly in film, along with Tarantino, Spielberg, and many others. Many audiophiles claim that vinyl sounds better than digital audio, and fans buy CDs and vinyls from their favourite artists as a true means of supporting them. People still go to the library to explore and borrow books, and many assert their preference for hard-copy over soft-copy books.

In other words, these old ways of doing things aren’t mainstream, but they’re still sought after by the people specifically interested in the experience. If you generically want to take photos or listen to music or read, you’re not going to care about the more ‘inconvenient’ paths. But you would take those paths if you were particular about the experience.

It might be in sensory aspects – maybe people enjoy feeling the paper between their fingers as they read because it creates a more sensorily rich experience. You don’t quite get that with an LED screen.

Or maybe it’s the social aspect. People like to geek out with others, and they like to form in-groups with those who share the same interests as them. Audiophiles get to share their enthusiasm for using copper audio cables with other audiophiles, and they in turn affirm each other and feel a sense of social unity, which is inherently important to us as humans.

Maybe it’s because these analog forms have legacies. The legacy of camera powerhouses like Leica and Kodak. The history of your grandfather’s SLR. These forms get passed down through a rose-coloured lens, symbols of a bygone era. And we romanticise the forms and spur the romantic internal narrative of our lives by partaking in these forms.

(I do want to disclaim here that I’m mainly talking about amateurs and hobbyists, people like myself, who choose to enjoy analog forms of activities that have highly accessible digital forms. I think professionals often choose analog forms because they have some mastery over the medium and can truly get a better output than digital forms.)

I think these are all legitimate reasons, as tongue-in-cheek as I write. But in addition to these reasons, I think using analog forms gives you a sense of intentionality, precisely because it’s a lengthier process.

To understand this, I’m going to talk about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the tension you feel when you hold contradictory values. We tend to think of ourselves as congruent people with congruent value systems, so when we observe this tension we seek to resolve it in various ways.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you really like McDonald’s, but you also see yourself as a cultured person. Someone confronts you about this at a fancy champagne party. They give you a weird, judging look and say “Hey, I saw you at McDonald’s the other day…”

Your first attempt might be to deny and pretend you weren’t there. But the person asserts that yes, they did indeed see you, and they heard someone calling your name there too. You can’t back out. Maybe now you go “well, I know some McDonald’s is trash, but their McSpicy’s are pretty good. I genuinely think it’s the best chicken burger in Singapore.” Or you might go “hey, even Obama likes McDonald’s. Chill out.”

What you’ve done here is you’ve attempted to resolve the tension between your desire to seem cultured and your love for McSpicy’s, by claiming that liking McSpicy’s is cultured in some way.

It may seem stupid, but we do this rationalisation all the time. Most of the time it’s an entirely unconscious move too. I do it all the time, no shame. Chances are you leave the conversation believing that it is cultured to like McSpicy’s. (If you’re interested, you can read Festinger’s (1959) experiment here, one of the key studies helping to define cognitive dissonance.)

As you might be guessing, I think part of why people use analog forms which take more time and effort might be in part because of cognitive dissonance. But it’s a bit more than that.

You have two conflicting beliefs: film photography is cool/pretty/interesting, but taking photos with your phone is a lot more efficient and cheaper than using film.

Perhaps your resolution is this: you make the hard choice to invest your time and money into film photography, knowing full well what it will cost. You actively choose the harder process. That in turn gives you a sense of ownership and pride about your choice. And that ownership helps you relish the process a lot more, and become more intentional about it.

Going back to the McDonald’s example, it’s that after you have that conversation with the snob at the champagne party, you go to McDonald’s right after and order 2 McSpicy’s, eating them with vigour. This time, you spend extra effort noting the crisp and juice and flavour of the burger with renewed interest. And you enjoy the McSpicy’s even more now.

See, we like investing effort into things. To us, effort gives things value. The reverse is true – people tend to downplay and care less about their work if it didn’t take them much effort.

With digital forms, everything’s at our fingertips and so easy to do. App interface design has never been better, with highly trained designers creating them to be as brainless and usable as possible. “Don’t make me think” is a big UX mantra. Yet, more people today are taking objectively better photos with their phones than in history, but fewer of them call themselves photographers.

The amount of effort separating the process of taking a picture with a phone camera versus a film camera is enormous. 10 seconds versus (at least!) 3 days to get a photo. That demands effort, which demands intentionality.

And you know what? Maybe the film photo looks exactly the same as the digital one. It might even look worse – blurrier, less vibrant. Maybe McSpicy is actually not the best chicken burger out there. But some people choose the longer, analog process because the process was meaningful to them, even if in an ‘irrational’ way.

You found meaning in the longer process that the easier process couldn’t provide. And that matters, no matter how subjective it is. Ease does not mean better. And more saliently, ease does not mean meaning.

So in this move from slow to quick, scarce to abundant, expensive to cheap, we gain a lot. Truly we do. But for some things, maybe we don’t want them to be easier.