I could produce a whole book from the Kodachromes and other images my father shot starting in the 1930s, and film shots starting in the 1920s. My father, a defense engineer and product manager, carried a camera everywhere. Years of family vacations and foreign travel. It's almost a time capsule of the world that covers almost a 90 year span of time. My father could look at any one of those thousands upon thousands of images and tell you exactly where and when they were taken, and he could do that well into his late 90s. Fascinating images.
This sounds like an amazing set of images. If you ever make one I hope to be able to find out about it to experience it. Obviously, this would be a very personal project for you. If you ever do make it, please return to this comment and let us know. From the sounds of Alex in this video, he would be interested as well.
I have my own film..then my dads and grandfathers....hundreds and hundreds. My project this coming winter is to starting parsing them and making sense of them...yes, curating them is likely the best word for them.
I’m thankful for photography and my love for it, because as I’ve got older, my memories are all in photographs. It’s almost like, if there isn’t a picture of it, I can’t remember it.
Years ago, I digitized hundreds of slides for a friend of my dads, most of them dating back to 1940's through the 1960's. I didn't know most of the people in the pictures, but to this day, it was one of my favorite projects. It's hard to put my finger on what I felt, but I think I felt sadness because most of the people in the pictures were gone, and I wonder if they fulfilled their hopes and dreams? And I felt gladness because a lot of the pictures were of fun times people were having, and they still had many years ahead of them before they passed. I also wonder about what the young people in the pictures were expecting for their future. 60 years had passed from when the pictures were taken and when I copied them, and so many things, good and bad, happened in those long years. Is that what nostalgia is?
I had a similar experience but with old audio tape. I worked at a mastering studio in the 90’s and we had a box of old reel tapes from a customer that he wanted transferred to digital. Many of the tapes were of a father talking to his wife and kids. They must’ve had some good equipment for the time because the voices were very clear despite the age. There were recordings they did at each Christmas where he asked the children to summarize what they each did that year. I listened on my headphones as the children grew up to become teenagers as each Christmas recording passed. I always wondered what happened to them.
When you said that it took a year to shoot up a 36 shot role of film it took me back to the early ‘90s. A professional photographer friend who worked in a camera store told me that the typical roll of processed film started Christmas pictures from one year and ended with Christmas pictures from the next. Just a little nostalgia.
For me, it's looking back at these images and seeing the world at a better time (in my opinion), a simpler time ... even if we are not "present" in these images, we remember the styles of the day (e.g. the fifties, sixties and seventies), the clothes people wore, the vehicles they drove, the distinct "look" of bygone eras, and sometimes wish that I was an adult living in those times, not just a kid ... Great insights Alex, thank you!
This!!! This is my personal photography niche. There is a beauty in the simple motion of life. Even the mundane or I’ll defined moments can be captivating. Sentiment + timing + photo skills = 🔥
My mom passed away last year and those pictures of my growing up and my parents meant so much more and I used photography as part of my mourning process. Great video, always appreciated.
I grew up in the 60s/70s and I took a lot of these snaps, lol! But I lost all of them over the years from moving, etc. These old film snaps are much more authentic than the digital pix today because with only 24 exposures in a film roll we had to be selective, & it took effort to drive or mail the film to a developer. And I hate all the insta filters people use today, & all the “retro” film simulation modes that are preloaded with cameras. It’s all very manipulative & phony. Thanks for this presentation- I can look at these old snaps all day long.
a fascinating discussion for sure, highly agree with how photography is a vehicle for memory; I think in the past it was understood that you could only commit certain things to memory within the technological limitations and cost of entry, so people tended to be more selective/mindful about their photography even for candid moments. As technology has surpassed even the speed of instant film with the age of digital, and pretty much no boundaries of speed/cost, people want to document everything and its slowly shifted into a practical action/the logging of data or edited beyond recognition for social media. During Covid lockdowns I was constantly reviewing snapshots taken on my iphone in years past (even if they weren't very good), and was so thankful to have captured important or fun moments with friends/family which even for the short amount of time was highly nostalgic, it made me reflect on the significance of life documentary and led me to invest more into the craft by way of dedicated cameras and looking at photography history/resources, and to be more mindful of those moments by taking the time and being present, slowly shifting from numbers (burst mode) to more deliberate photographs. There is certainly a fatigue that comes with overshooting. Studying the works of old, I am drawn to the life documentary aspects of the photographers you've mentioned, and I'm thankful for your channel for bridging the eras of photography from the film days to now for a holistic view of the condition of photography
Exactly! When I’m scanning old negatives from my early family life, when my children were small, there are so many images that I probably would have deleted had it been possible: out of focus, badly, composed, badly exposed, but you know what? They are absolute treasures! Today, I delete nothing. I know it wastes gigabytes, but I don’t trust myself to delete anything.
Phew. What a relief. I made it through the whole video without discovering a photographer with whom I was unfamiliar and whose work I must now acquire and study. :-)
What you say is so true: "There is something about photographs that they have the power to reach across the decades and pull us into their time and place. I don't get that feeling from paintings but from photographs." But beyond nostalgia, there is something in a particular photograph that evokes an ineffable feeling that doesn't seem to come from the image itself but is able to awaken something in me that I didn't know I had until I saw the image. This is hard to explain, but I'll try. I take a picture, and when I look at it, I find it alluring. That attraction doesn't seem to come from the usual qualities that we think constitute a good photograph such as composition, lighting, etc. The image evokes in us an unmistakable feeling -- a sense of quietude, even of regret, or probably the remembrance of a dream. When you try to analyze why you are so attracted to the picture, you are at a loss. But it is there.
I believe, in response to your salient observations, that the biggest shortcoming we have as a community in 2023 - is our ability to concentrate on anything for more than 2 seconds. In years gone past - even when I was young - we had more time, and more space to live.
All,these photo’s radiated with a kind of innocence to me. Perhaps the fact that they were only snapshots that had no artistic intention or ambition is the strength of this project.
This is one of the best of your best videos, Alex :) So saturated with meaning, lots to think about, very timely for me, too. I think in art generally we need a bit (or lots) of everything, and both authentic and recreated nostalgia have their place. Art, among other things, is about evoking, relating, (re)creating etc.
30 years ago when traveling South Africa i did spend a night at the lord milner hotel. That was one of the most remembered time i spent in that country.
@4:10. How awesome. When I saw Awty written on the shirts I instantly remembered being in Houston TX between ´85 and ´89. I studied in the Awty International School during these years. What a coincidence 😀 Thanks again for your inspiring channel. You are all about the art of photography 👍 Nostalgia is always about things, people or places that take you instantly somewhere with a sense of déjà vu. Even if you were not there or lived during the period, you feel like you are connected in an unexplainable way.
To me, nostalgia is a justified and rightful part of photography. All photographs are inherently about the past, and all of them will have varying amounts of “remembrance” attached to them. I am fully at peace with the idea that some photos I adore I do so because of that feeling.
In May, I traveled back in time to where I lived in my high school days of the early 70's. The memories I had of those days only changed by the amount of change in the landscape. New homes, businesses. The roads are the same, the path of my knowledge led me to reminisce of feelings that brought both good and not so good days. I have family photo's going back to the 1920-30's showing a much leaner country back then. On this trip to see my sister and a few cousin's, it was a 15 hour drive one way. The shear amount of traffic now is horrendous. That's progress for you.
Hi Alex, My experience of Nostalgia is when i look at old photos and the Taxis that were around then aren't there anymore. We had a Monorail that was knocked down in 2011, and lucky i've got photos of it. And the old Telephone boxes, i have photos of them, things that aren't around anymore it's good to look back, Nostalgia and Memories of the past are important to preserve. Loved the photo of the couple celebrating their 50TH Wedding Anniversary, great Nostalgia. This great video will be Nostalgia one day, that we can look back and remember where we were when we watched this video. Thank you. 😃
As a general rule, I am interested in the nostalgia elicited by my own photos or those taken at times and places that involved me or my circle of family/friends. The shots from the Anonymous Project carry with them a certain sadness because each must have some story of loss behind it to have ultimately become “anonymous”.
I moved from Vancouver BC to Vancouver Island, a small geriatric themed town with many Canadian retirees escaping golf robbying winter. I was involved in street photography in Vancouver an easy city for this kind of project - colour, charisma, diversification, rags to riches, hustle and bustle - a plethora of life to capture, the land of Herzog. But I have struggled with street photography in my small town. And yes, I have watched videos of SP in small towns, but nothing kicked off my creative legs. But watching this, I found myself thinking how about making nostalgia photographs in the today could reflect the yesterday in the tomorrow. By the way, my favourite photograph in the video was near the end in a farming community. A teen couple can be seen in an intimate moment, almost as though the photographer has captured their apologetic hearts after an argument, solemn but caring, unnoticed by the others, the photographer not aware. (minute 8:30)
I think you have a good point and nostalgia can be part of the appeal of photography. And by design this feeling can only manifest itself in the future, when the photos start to represent the past. It also makes me realize that many pictures that many mundane scenes that may not seem worth photographing may actually become very interesting to look at some years later.
We just returned from 16 days on safari in Zambia and the opportunities for photography was so vast one could literally find something worth photographing every minute. It takes an act of will to set down the camera and not take a photo, instead committing the moment to the emulsion of memory. I'm happy with my photos, and also happy that I had the good sense to stop taking them at key moments.
I have a theory that the more photographs are taken (BTW - as opposed to "made"), the less value is placed on them. I grew up in a household where money was tight and the family camera was a box Brownie. Film and processing was expensive, so it was an occasion when we took the film to the chemist and collected the prints a week later. Photos that had "come out" were preserved in an album, and the rest were left in a cardboard box in a cupboard - but were available. The irony is that at a time when it's never been easier to catalogue, backup, preserve and view photographs - people don't. This is sad as we never know the ultimate value of an image when we make it - so deleting photographs should always after deep consideration. Thanks for another thoughtful video.
Couldn't agree more, Alex. Studying the images by Ernst Haas in the book, New York In Color 1952-1962, as a result of watching your other videos, it occurred to me that it was impossible for me to see the photos without feeling a borrowed sense of nostalgia. I felt that I could give the book to my dad, who grew up in 1950s Australia, and he would get that same sense because we have never been to New York. His nostalgia would be closer to being "real" than mine, but it would still be inauthentic. It was funny having this realisation last week, and seeing this video today. Great video mate. I got a lot from this one.
I absolutely agree, there is something about photographs that effortlessly evoke nostalgia and even a weird deja vu feeling for me, like I was actually there, even with the absolute notion that I was not. Another great discussion sir!
Bravo. I recently inherited a number of family albums that address this very issue. As always I find you are source for mentorship par excellence. I am ordering the book.
Nostalgia is certainly one of the main attractions of old photos. Interesting is Alex's further analysis leading to the term "false nostalgia" in conjunction with periods prior to our lifespans. This feeling is even strengthened if the photo is in black and white. Lack of evident artistic value is probably even compensated by our nostalgia because the viewer of an obviously old photo will tend to be more forgiving. As far as digital versus analog is concerned, I would like to point out that there were always two types of photographers. One who gave a considerable amount of thought to the picture he or she was taking, and one whe gave hardly any thought to the process at all. Photography on film was quite expensive and a film-roll only had quite a limited capacity. The sheer cost forced many people to give thought to what they were doing. This probably gave rise to a larger fraction of "thinkers" among the photographing population. Even so most of the peop[e were more "users" than "photographers". Today, with images costing almost nothing and easy to use equipment, we are left with the much smaller natural fraction of dedicated photographers. These are vastly overshadowed by myriads of indifferent camera i.e. smartphone users. Photographers were always rare. Casual camera users not any more. Everything started exclusively with scientists and inventors, followed by the first generation of photographers. Prior to 1888 and the marketing of the "Kodak No. 1" there were probably no casual users at all.
Indifference does not equal smartphone users. I use a phone because I can't afford other equipment, and also like using it. I spend as much time composing and editing as any other photographer. I'm good but not great, but it's not due to the limitations of the equipment, I've seen plenty of worse from people posting a litany of equipment specs with every image. To be clear, I only take issue with your phrase "indifferent camera i.e. smartphone users". I agree with the rest of your assessment.
@@curiousabout1 Sorry, I did not intend to say that all smartphone users are indifferent. I was talking about the vast majority of today's indifferent smartphone users. Of course there are a few not indifferent users. I myself use my smartphone camera now and again. And of course, the photographer makes the picture, not the gear. And on top of that, a talented photographer sees the motive. The gear never saw anything. 😇
There is a research paper that concluded that nostalgia counteracts the feeling of loneliness, boredom and anxiety. Hmm? This does sound like the time we find ourselves.
When I look at the photos from the photographers you mention from the past its all nostalgia for me. When I look at images of New York, I don't see the thought process of the photographer, the lighting, composition etc. I just see past times.
I was born in 1962, yet I've felt a lot of nostalgia for the 1920s by looking at photos from that era. Just imagine sitting in the Cotton Club watching Duke Ellington and his band play, and the flapper scene. By the way Alex, are you familiar with the work of Alfred Cheney Johnston? Worked in NYC in the 20's, and was a pioneer of both art-nude and glamour photography. His work very much combines the two, and is quite fascinating.
Again, what a wonderful approach in sensing those timeless photographs, free of any regular criteria. I very much enjoy your company and variety of thoughts, together with your experience, through your videos. Thank you so much. A deep rooted true enrichment.
There's something about the images that tell us our own story. I can appreciate something of the elements in the world that shaped my parents because of the images, they've shared from before I was born. Our kids love looking back through older images of themselves and recalling stories. I had pulled out some negatives and old photos one day, and they asked about them. I got my first digital camera when the second one was very little, so they hadn't really had a memory of film. They had a lovely curiosity about how it all worked for us - back then. One of them also asked what the world was like when it was black and white . . . . .. of course, not all our older photographs are colour . . . so they made a logical conclusion. Interesting to think about Alex. Thank you.
I remember growing up pondering with wonder what the future would be like. Now that it's arrived, it's become obvious that we've been sold a lie. The longing for simpler, innocent times is the what drives most feelings of nostalgia. Despite the horrors of the modern age, I feel we owe it to future generations to document the decay of our society, so that they don't repeat our mistakes. As implausible, as it might sound, there will come a time when people will feel nostalgic for the early 2020s. One of my most recent nostalgic memories was from February of 2020. I went to a metal show with a buddy from work on a random Tuesday night. I had no idea how dramatically the world was going to change in the coming weeks. To this day, it's still been the last live music show I went to.
Very enjoyable video. I’ve always felt that photography, from it’s inception, was driven by the desire to hold on to the perishing moment. Almost everyone is fascinated by going through a box or boxes of old family photos and musing on the time,place, subject and reasons for the photo. What was going on at the time and how were people in the image feeling and experiencing their lives at the moment? Even now I am more attracted to taking images at historic or at least older places.I think photography and nostalgia, as both looking back as well as preserving the moment, are inextricably linked.
I am guilty of trying to make photos look from another time - whether it’s through my choice of film stock, sensor technology or digital processing. However, I’m aiming for a sense of atemporality - the subject and emotion is the key to enjoying the photo, not the technology, the gear or the era. Thoughts?
Photos are like time machines. As soon as the image is captured that moment will never occur again. Every picture of a scene or a person records a piece of history. Amazing when you actually think about it.
Im not a fan of modern photography I’m afraid. I think it’s sad that the majority of people are using their phone to document their life. For me, there is a quality to these old photos that you don’t get by snapping on your phone. We have swapped quality for convenience. But the saddest part is that people will also lose current photos over time because they are only digital files and people are taking them to upload to social media and not backing up. Whereas the physical negatives and slides sit in a box and last forever, as these beautiful photos have.
I have often wondered why, and how to use nostalgia in relation to the present. I shoot 50% film, and that alone, sometimes gives my images a nostalgic wipe, and, a lot of pleasure. Often I photograph subjects that are about to disappear, or in decay. As a young photographer, 36 years ago, I was equally obsessed with nostalgia, and nothing have changed for me since. For me, photography is all about nostalgia. Sooner or later, all images will be nostalgia.
My favourite possetions are a collection of old prints and polaroids of my famy going abck the the 60's. I have the camera my father used to make the most memorable childhood photograph I have, both are precious for the memories that go with them.
Nostalgia definitely influences emotions, and those types of images are a recorded history of times past. I think the thing that differentiates Vivian Maier from the rest is her composition and at times you can follow her day from her images, get a sense of the sequence of what she did in that day. She seems to have caught people up close and unaware until the shutter opened. The sheer volume of her images and the hiding them away.snap shots are one thing, but she put an artists perspective in her images.
Most interesting and thought provoking, thanks Alex. In one anonymous image there was a British car that I owned at the time and I was present somewhere else in that moment of time. Then it was modern life and yes, it did make me feel nostalgic. Generally though I look at these old masters and view them as historical documents of interest. Also, Maier, Leiter et al. still can teach us about composition and responding to the moment but for we photographers today, we should move forward, not back.
Fascinating discussion and ta very much for another excellent video. I’ve been shooting with a Fujifilm X100V for almost a year now, trying out different film simulations (recipes). I was born in the fifties so well remember the look of film and slides that we shot back then. I’m still discovering the possibilities of “nostalgic” film looks in my digital photography today after years of iPhone and digital point and shoot snaps. I definitely have an emotional response to images of that era even if I don’t know the folks in the snaps. Good points about today’s instant curation … I mostly keep everything!
Just watched a video about Jay Maisel, a long time street photographer in New York. His Basic theory of photography are Light, Gesture and Color. He said that a leaf has just as much as a building or a street full of people. That's my kind of thinking.
I've wondered similarly, because I like to take pictures of beautiful things and what I find beautiful are buildings from 100 years ago that give me nostalgia. So I'm trying to recreate the past, in a way. It's hard for me to appreciate current aesthetics enough to photograph them, like the way people dress, cars, houses. I like some of my classmates' photos, though, because they do take pictures of their lives and friends "young people", and it makes now seem interesting. It almost gives me a nostalgia but for the present, for a younger person's life.
I've always been very conscious of nostalgia in photographs. It's what draws me to a lot of the photographers whose work I admire. It's also why I still shoot film and use an Instax camera - I'd still be shooting Polaroid if it wasn't so heinously expensive. I find modern-day Instagram work, for the most part, quite vapid. The problem is that everyone follows trends these days, so everything starts to look the same. The irony of course is that so many try to achieve the nostalgic look with filters.
The nostalgia evoked by olden day photos may be because these are snapshots everyone can do. We also know that the photographer could tell the story associated with that snapshot
As always, so well articulated. I still use 35mm film, and sometimes Super 8, because I can’t stand the cold, soulless aesthetic of digital photos. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just trying to create the illusion of nostalgia. I also wonder what my son is going to think of all these film photos and Super 8 footage I’ve taken of him, in contrast to the thousands of digital photos and videos I’ve taken of him. Will the film photos stand out as being special or just a novelty?
As a former photoreporter, I live with ghosts. All those people I took pictures and I live with those photographs but I will never see them again. They are many in my head.
For the nostalgia of photo is because it brings back memories of a time, place, and people I can only relive through the photos. But not all photos will do this. I'm not to keen on using old techniques to recreate a certain nostalgic feel as there is an incongruity between the photo and the scene. There are certain photos that are timeless. Also photography by its nature captures a specific moment and place even now.
Nostalgia is so powerful. I have inherited all my parent’s photographs going back to the 50s. I can’t bear to look at them yet as I know they will tear me apart.
Your point about questioning the value of nostalgia is a good one, Alex. The visual "time stamp" of an image seems tied to fashion and even to the industrial design of the objects in the frame. A timeless image remains valuable even in the face of changing fashion and historical trends. Ansel Adams' Tunnel View would be just as striking in any decade. Vincent Peters' 21st-century image of Charlize Theron is as striking as Kirkland's 1961 image of Marilyn Monroe (both women cloaked in white bedsheets) while the countless boudoir images of women in the lingerie fashion of the moment look dated to the decades in which they were produced and somehow no longer engaging... Perhaps art should strive to be timeless. At least sometimes...
Hmm, being a Brit, who's never been to the USA, that sense of nostalgia you mention, is quite often lacking for me, when viewing this video and looking at some of these Pictures, except when it comes to pictures of UNIVERSAL, not cultural experience, such as those that reminisce about the experience of Family. If I was to feel a sense of nostalgia about an American city like New York, Boston or Chicago, for instance, I'd say that was the result of watching American films when I was a child. What I'm saying is, is that nostalgia for somewhere I've never been is based on my imagination, fed by 'cross-culturalism,' via some the media. For me, obviously, 'Americana' doesn't do it, but the moodiness of the Paintings of Edward Hopper do. It's the People in Vivian Maier's Photographs that are interesting to me, not the places, even though the interaction between the people and places are what make those pictures so good.
My father was given a camera when I was very young. He shot Kodachrome on it, mostly of my mother and me, and when he died and we cleaned out the family home and the boxes of slide came to me. Looking through them they had those wonderful muted Kodachrome colors. Regrettably, my father was a terrible photographer, he had a unique capacity to decapitate the subjects. So, much of what I inherited were headless torsos rendered in wonderful shades of Kodachrome.😊
I don't think that your father was quite unique. My mother could always produce pictures of empty spaces with maybe a couple of human body parts protruding into one corner - and the next roll would be identical. In those days of film, adults would look at bad photos and say that they "had not come out" and somehow blame wherever they had taken the film for processing. Digital photography should - in theory at least - have lead to better results!
Digital is not damaging. The manner in which many photographers use digital can be. One of my favorite photographers recently announced he was going back to film because (and I am badly paraphrasing all that he said) he felt he was a better shooter when he slowed down and used film. He, and many photographers, are allowing the capabilities of digital cameras to control how they work. This is not how an artist uses a tool. The best carpenters, mechanics, and photographers control their tools to achieve the desired result rather than allowing the tool to control them. Fifty years from now, the cycle will repeat. Someone will find a DVC, SD card, or thumb drive full of snapshots from today and be nostalgic for the early days of digital cameras when they perceive life was simpler and better.
So, since you asked the question, 'No, i don't feel some sense of "nostalgia" - i'm not even clear on what that would be like in relation to... anything, really'. Curious, i just ran it by my partner. She's immeasurably more clever than i am - a high-flying PhD in Psychology - and her answer was 'No, i really don't "get it". Maybe we think that it's a manifestation of a particular way of being invested in the Human Thing, but (while common) it's clearly neither a necessary nor universal experience. Whatever, we certainly enjoy 'old' photos, and we definitely engage with them through our own peculiar lenses. Cheers from the swamp.
Alex, I'm concerned about your cat. In the last few videos it appears that the spark of life has departed! My parents had albums and boxes of photos. I asked my mother to make a note of who was in the photos, as she remembered most of them. She said "no one will be interested in them." My reply was that they are history. Family, my father and his comrades in Egypt and Italy during the second world war, their trips around the country after he retired. My late cousin and his father took many photos, mostly slides, of their trips around the world. I have no idea what happened to them but recall the slide evenings we had after they got back from another trip. Sometimes I think back about the places I have been when I didn't have a camera with me and now there's nothing left. And, as someone once said, "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."
Those photos in the video were all beautiful, but part of me thinks nostalgia is a kind of dangerous escapism, like fantasy novels and superhero movies. I could be wrong. I'm probably wrong, but looking at an old photo and "missing" it seems like willfully idealizing a time and place. It's a problem for me for sure.
I bought my first 35mm camera in '72... a Konica auto reflex T... still shoot it. I mostly shot 24 exposure slides. Ektachrome 64 speed. Often I'd shoot five or six rolls a month. Yes, I have BOXES of slides and prints... more than makes sense.
It may not be true nostalgia. It could simply be that because these older photographs depict places, object, people, etc. that no longer exist, they are unique. But they must have enough familiarity to still be recognizable - yet oddly "not of the now". For example, a photo from the 1960's or 1970's will still have enough visual clues to be old, but recognizable. A photo from the late1800s lacks these modern touchstones so it is just a historical oddity.
Digital or not, my photographs (after 50 years of practice) are still "bleepy" snapshots 😊 Nostalgia is predominantly projected onto the picture by the viewer? For me, the great advantage of digital photography, is the possibility to shoot 24 or 36 takes and select the most atmospheric, tell-tale image of the bunch, without any serious financial investment. Doesn't make me any better of a photographer, but the one in a thousand shot comes a whole lot closer.
The Anonymous Project shows how little difference there really is between at least some of the images of the "greats" and those whose work will never be widely celebrated or included in museums or books. This is not to say that they're all brilliant by any means, but it does underscore the fact that some technically weak images can still resonate. Principle criteria for a great work of art in any medium include making the viewer think or feel, and that's exactly what many of these do. Agreed that way too many images (most of them crap, to be frank) are being "taken" (and worse, posted) since they put cameras in phones--a net deficit for the artform as everything's been watered-down, making it harder for meritorious work to get noticed. Re curation/archiving, I still have many of my negatives and prints from the film era (as well as those from my father), which I plan to digitize, plus I back-up my RAWs and JPGs (I try to delete the ones I know I won't use, but err on the side of caution), but it must be remembered that even digital files can degrade (and can of course be lost completely). Most of my inkjet prints are done on archival paper with pigment-based inks (claimed to last 200-400 years), but there's no guarantee that they'll remain safe either. It's an interesting technical problem for archivists to address how to preserve photos for posterity.
Personally I find the secondary captured details of everyday life in older images to be far more interesting (and even compelling) than any feelings of nostalgia. For example, while seeing some of these images I found myself looking at background details -- store signs, cars and other items -- far more than what was ostensibly the subject. Maybe that's because I would have absolutely no interest in going back to my childhood even if I could. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's related to why I have virtually no snapshots of my wife, child, parents nor siblings, despite owning cameras for decades. I just see nothing to be gained by going backward. We build on what has come before and certainly, we've not always done a good job, but I feel no attraction to return. I suspect others feel differently, though.
On the streets the older images revealed just how many men wore hats, suites and ties, and just how many people smoked cigarettes. In current times, nearly all my street photos show how addicting and dominate a role in our daily life a smartphone has become. Of course, in looking back at older photos, we do see the automobile, the TV, a radio, and other tech of my age dominating the scene. Photos of kids playing the latest 45s and those of today showing a cell phone in use are somewhat similar, yet I do wonder. What is about a smartphone that demands 24hrs of attention. I am serious, as I do see people on the beach using a phone instead of enjoying the sand and water, people in restaurants in conversation, but not with the another person at the table, and just simply everywhere, as though it has become a part of their soul. It may be worse than TV? Maybe it is like a candy, and people need more sugar. Maybe people are just bored these days and it fills their time. As much as things may appear to have changed, in walking the streets with camera in hand, the more you observe people in their daily course of life, aside of the phone, you pick up on a smile, a smirk, a flirtatious look, a gesture, or just ways of movement you swear was the same as the way things were a half century ago. A couple holding hands -- timeless. Well mostly so. People still dance, sing, throw a ball back and forth, while their dogs is thinking, I can get that ya know. The city parks have changed so little. And we thought that skateboarding was just a fad. 😎 I must say, I don't see Beatle boots around anymore. 🧐
Alex, you leave me utterly confused: what is it you try to say? (On a sidenote: in the series of pictures you showed us, these of the well-known photographers don't really stand out to me. That is no doubt due to my ignorance...)
Does it really matter why we, me or you, feel good seeing a photo. Isn't it more important just enjoy the way you can. Of course if you want to recreate that feeling or copy style, or even get tools for your own photography, you have to analyse what is in that photo that touches you, but if you are not, can you, or me, just enjoy, without thinking is it nostalgy, composing, light or motif, which touches me? I personally think we should more just enjoy.
Interesting video. Mobil phones in my mind will never be found nostalgic to look at in a image. I hope I am wrong but I am avoiding them as much as I can.
Nostalgia in old photographs is a value that is independent of composition and should not be included in judging the creative quality of a photograph or the skill of the photographer. The same applies to exoticism, which is also often unconsciously included in the assessment, especially in travel photography. Or the beauty of a model, the presentation (e.g., in a gallery) of a photograph, etc. All these aspects have a strong influence on our perception of a photo and its market value, but are not a criterion for the artistic quality of the photo. Here, the effect and market value of a photo is confused with its artistic quality.
Why do you call it "false" nostalgia. Just because someone didn't actually live the time doesn't mean they can't be nostalgic for the ambience and zeitgeist of that era, nor does it make that nostalgia not genuine. I look at pictures of my grandparents as young adults and from my knowledge of them as old and infirm, and now deceased, I have a great yearning to have know them when they were young and vital; the same with my parents. I have those same desires when viewing images of folks, dead now 50-80 years, that I have no idea of who they are. The boys playing in the rain with a car going by, and a young Alex Kilbee, playing sometime, somewhere, in rain, with everything right in your world, strikes a common chord, in tune and coherent, with Alex Kilbee today. Why call it false. It isn't.
Because false nostalgia is actually a thing. It's the reminiscence of something you have never lived while nostalgia is longing for something you have lived but in your mind it's better than it actually was. Both of them brings some kind of a memory but one of them is actually from your memories and the other one mostly comes from your identity, the stories you've been told, the culture you live in or absorb... Calling it false nostalgia doesn't make the feeling of being nostalgic less genuine, it just comes from another place and is a different kind of somewhat the same feeling. At least this is what I think about it.
@@jamesoliver6625 yes, I do not disagree with you, but we as humans like to categorize things haha and is somewhat important that we can see the difference between those two
I could produce a whole book from the Kodachromes and other images my father shot starting in the 1930s, and film shots starting in the 1920s. My father, a defense engineer and product manager, carried a camera everywhere. Years of family vacations and foreign travel. It's almost a time capsule of the world that covers almost a 90 year span of time. My father could look at any one of those thousands upon thousands of images and tell you exactly where and when they were taken, and he could do that well into his late 90s. Fascinating images.
This sounds like an amazing set of images. If you ever make one I hope to be able to find out about it to experience it. Obviously, this would be a very personal project for you. If you ever do make it, please return to this comment and let us know. From the sounds of Alex in this video, he would be interested as well.
I have my own film..then my dads and grandfathers....hundreds and hundreds. My project this coming winter is to starting parsing them and making sense of them...yes, curating them is likely the best word for them.
I’m thankful for photography and my love for it, because as I’ve got older, my memories are all in photographs. It’s almost like, if there isn’t a picture of it, I can’t remember it.
Years ago, I digitized hundreds of slides for a friend of my dads, most of them dating back to 1940's through the 1960's. I didn't know most of the people in the pictures, but to this day, it was one of my favorite projects.
It's hard to put my finger on what I felt, but I think I felt sadness because most of the people in the pictures were gone, and I wonder if they fulfilled their hopes and dreams? And I felt gladness because a lot of the pictures were of fun times people were having, and they still had many years ahead of them before they passed.
I also wonder about what the young people in the pictures were expecting for their future. 60 years had passed from when the pictures were taken and when I copied them, and so many things, good and bad, happened in those long years.
Is that what nostalgia is?
I had a similar experience but with old audio tape. I worked at a mastering studio in the 90’s and we had a box of old reel tapes from a customer that he wanted transferred to digital. Many of the tapes were of a father talking to his wife and kids. They must’ve had some good equipment for the time because the voices were very clear despite the age. There were recordings they did at each Christmas where he asked the children to summarize what they each did that year. I listened on my headphones as the children grew up to become teenagers as each Christmas recording passed. I always wondered what happened to them.
When you said that it took a year to shoot up a 36 shot role of film it took me back to the early ‘90s. A professional photographer friend who worked in a camera store told me that the typical roll of processed film started Christmas pictures from one year and ended with Christmas pictures from the next. Just a little nostalgia.
For me, it's looking back at these images and seeing the world at a better time (in my opinion), a simpler time ... even if we are not "present" in these images, we remember the styles of the day (e.g. the fifties, sixties and seventies), the clothes people wore, the vehicles they drove, the distinct "look" of bygone eras, and sometimes wish that I was an adult living in those times, not just a kid ... Great insights Alex, thank you!
This!!! This is my personal photography niche. There is a beauty in the simple motion of life. Even the mundane or I’ll defined moments can be captivating. Sentiment + timing + photo skills = 🔥
My mom passed away last year and those pictures of my growing up and my parents meant so much more and I used photography as part of my mourning process. Great video, always appreciated.
I just posted my comment then realised I had echoed yours!
I grew up in the 60s/70s and I took a lot of these snaps, lol! But I lost all of them over the years from moving, etc. These old film snaps are much more authentic than the digital pix today because with only 24 exposures in a film roll we had to be selective, & it took effort to drive or mail the film to a developer. And I hate all the insta filters people use today, & all the “retro” film simulation modes that are preloaded with cameras. It’s all very manipulative & phony. Thanks for this presentation- I can look at these old snaps all day long.
We are fascinated by the memories of what we cannot get back.
a fascinating discussion for sure, highly agree with how photography is a vehicle for memory; I think in the past it was understood that you could only commit certain things to memory within the technological limitations and cost of entry, so people tended to be more selective/mindful about their photography even for candid moments. As technology has surpassed even the speed of instant film with the age of digital, and pretty much no boundaries of speed/cost, people want to document everything and its slowly shifted into a practical action/the logging of data or edited beyond recognition for social media. During Covid lockdowns I was constantly reviewing snapshots taken on my iphone in years past (even if they weren't very good), and was so thankful to have captured important or fun moments with friends/family which even for the short amount of time was highly nostalgic, it made me reflect on the significance of life documentary and led me to invest more into the craft by way of dedicated cameras and looking at photography history/resources, and to be more mindful of those moments by taking the time and being present, slowly shifting from numbers (burst mode) to more deliberate photographs. There is certainly a fatigue that comes with overshooting. Studying the works of old, I am drawn to the life documentary aspects of the photographers you've mentioned, and I'm thankful for your channel for bridging the eras of photography from the film days to now for a holistic view of the condition of photography
Exactly! When I’m scanning old negatives from my early family life, when my children were small, there are so many images that I probably would have deleted had it been possible: out of focus, badly, composed, badly exposed, but you know what? They are absolute treasures! Today, I delete nothing. I know it wastes gigabytes, but I don’t trust myself to delete anything.
Just reread Ernst Haas's book New York in Color 1952-1962, what an inspiration he was/is to the art and photography world!
Another great video. Thank you soo much
Our pleasure!
Phew. What a relief. I made it through the whole video without discovering a photographer with whom I was unfamiliar and whose work I must now acquire and study. :-)
😂
What you say is so true: "There is something about photographs that they have the power to reach across the decades and pull us into their time and place. I don't get that feeling from paintings but from photographs." But beyond nostalgia, there is something in a particular photograph that evokes an ineffable feeling that doesn't seem to come from the image itself but is able to awaken something in me that I didn't know I had until I saw the image. This is hard to explain, but I'll try. I take a picture, and when I look at it, I find it alluring. That attraction doesn't seem to come from the usual qualities that we think constitute a good photograph such as composition, lighting, etc. The image evokes in us an unmistakable feeling -- a sense of quietude, even of regret, or probably the remembrance of a dream. When you try to analyze why you are so attracted to the picture, you are at a loss. But it is there.
I believe, in response to your salient observations, that the biggest shortcoming we have as a community in 2023 - is our ability to concentrate on anything for more than 2 seconds. In years gone past - even when I was young - we had more time, and more space to live.
When I was scanning old images, those feeling you describe did rush over me. thanks
All,these photo’s radiated with a kind of innocence to me. Perhaps the fact that they were only snapshots that had no artistic intention or ambition is the strength of this project.
Thanks!
Ohh the colors! Will we ever be able to get these again?
This is one of the best of your best videos, Alex :) So saturated with meaning, lots to think about, very timely for me, too. I think in art generally we need a bit (or lots) of everything, and both authentic and recreated nostalgia have their place. Art, among other things, is about evoking, relating, (re)creating etc.
Wow, thank you!
30 years ago when traveling South Africa i did spend a night at the lord milner hotel.
That was one of the most remembered time i spent in that country.
@4:10. How awesome. When I saw Awty written on the shirts I instantly remembered being in Houston TX between ´85 and ´89. I studied in the Awty International School during these years. What a coincidence 😀
Thanks again for your inspiring channel. You are all about the art of photography 👍
Nostalgia is always about things, people or places that take you instantly somewhere with a sense of déjà vu. Even if you were not there or lived during the period, you feel like you are connected in an unexplainable way.
Thanks for watching
To me, nostalgia is a justified and rightful part of photography. All photographs are inherently about the past, and all of them will have varying amounts of “remembrance” attached to them. I am fully at peace with the idea that some photos I adore I do so because of that feeling.
a picture, taken today, should be contemporary. After years it became nostalgic by itself - or by time. This is the way it goes.
In May, I traveled back in time to where I lived in my high school days of the early 70's. The memories I had of those days only changed by the amount of change in the landscape. New homes, businesses. The roads are the same, the path of my knowledge led me to reminisce of feelings that brought both good and not so good days. I have family photo's going back to the 1920-30's showing a much leaner country back then. On this trip to see my sister and a few cousin's, it was a 15 hour drive one way. The shear amount of traffic now is horrendous. That's progress for you.
Hi Alex, My experience of Nostalgia is when i look at old photos and the Taxis that were around then aren't there anymore. We had a Monorail that was knocked down in 2011, and lucky i've got photos of it. And the old Telephone boxes, i have photos of them, things that aren't around anymore it's good to look back, Nostalgia and Memories of the past are important to preserve. Loved the photo of the couple celebrating their 50TH Wedding Anniversary, great Nostalgia. This great video will be Nostalgia one day, that we can look back and remember where we were when we watched this video. Thank you. 😃
☺️thanks for watching.
@@ThePhotographicEye No worries your welcome Alex 👍
As a general rule, I am interested in the nostalgia elicited by my own photos or those taken at times and places that involved me or my circle of family/friends. The shots from the Anonymous Project carry with them a certain sadness because each must have some story of loss behind it to have ultimately become “anonymous”.
I moved from Vancouver BC to Vancouver Island, a small geriatric themed town with many Canadian retirees escaping golf robbying winter. I was involved in street photography in Vancouver an easy city for this kind of project - colour, charisma, diversification, rags to riches, hustle and bustle - a plethora of life to capture, the land of Herzog. But I have struggled with street photography in my small town. And yes, I have watched videos of SP in small towns, but nothing kicked off my creative legs. But watching this, I found myself thinking how about making nostalgia photographs in the today could reflect the yesterday in the tomorrow.
By the way, my favourite photograph in the video was near the end in a farming community. A teen couple can be seen in an intimate moment, almost as though the photographer has captured their apologetic hearts after an argument, solemn but caring, unnoticed by the others, the photographer not aware. (minute 8:30)
I think you have a good point and nostalgia can be part of the appeal of photography. And by design this feeling can only manifest itself in the future, when the photos start to represent the past. It also makes me realize that many pictures that many mundane scenes that may not seem worth photographing may actually become very interesting to look at some years later.
We just returned from 16 days on safari in Zambia and the opportunities for photography was so vast one could literally find something worth photographing every minute. It takes an act of will to set down the camera and not take a photo, instead committing the moment to the emulsion of memory. I'm happy with my photos, and also happy that I had the good sense to stop taking them at key moments.
I have a theory that the more photographs are taken (BTW - as opposed to "made"), the less value is placed on them. I grew up in a household where money was tight and the family camera was a box Brownie. Film and processing was expensive, so it was an occasion when we took the film to the chemist and collected the prints a week later. Photos that had "come out" were preserved in an album, and the rest were left in a cardboard box in a cupboard - but were available.
The irony is that at a time when it's never been easier to catalogue, backup, preserve and view photographs - people don't. This is sad as we never know the ultimate value of an image when we make it - so deleting photographs should always after deep consideration.
Thanks for another thoughtful video.
Thank you for your comments and watching the channel
Couldn't agree more, Alex.
Studying the images by Ernst Haas in the book, New York In Color 1952-1962, as a result of watching your other videos, it occurred to me that it was impossible for me to see the photos without feeling a borrowed sense of nostalgia. I felt that I could give the book to my dad, who grew up in 1950s Australia, and he would get that same sense because we have never been to New York. His nostalgia would be closer to being "real" than mine, but it would still be inauthentic.
It was funny having this realisation last week, and seeing this video today.
Great video mate. I got a lot from this one.
That’s awesome. Thank you for watching.
I absolutely agree, there is something about photographs that effortlessly evoke nostalgia and even a weird deja vu feeling for me, like I was actually there, even with the absolute notion that I was not. Another great discussion sir!
Thank you
Bravo. I recently inherited a number of family albums that address this very issue. As always I find you are source for mentorship par excellence. I am ordering the book.
Nostalgia is certainly one of the main attractions of old photos. Interesting is Alex's further analysis leading to the term "false nostalgia" in conjunction with periods prior to our lifespans. This feeling is even strengthened if the photo is in black and white. Lack of evident artistic value is probably even compensated by our nostalgia because the viewer of an obviously old photo will tend to be more forgiving.
As far as digital versus analog is concerned, I would like to point out that there were always two types of photographers. One who gave a considerable amount of thought to the picture he or she was taking, and one whe gave hardly any thought to the process at all.
Photography on film was quite expensive and a film-roll only had quite a limited capacity. The sheer cost forced many people to give thought to what they were doing. This probably gave rise to a larger fraction of "thinkers" among the photographing population. Even so most of the peop[e were more "users" than "photographers".
Today, with images costing almost nothing and easy to use equipment, we are left with the much smaller natural fraction of dedicated photographers. These are vastly overshadowed by myriads of indifferent camera i.e. smartphone users. Photographers were always rare. Casual camera users not any more.
Everything started exclusively with scientists and inventors, followed by the first generation of photographers. Prior to 1888 and the marketing of the "Kodak No. 1" there were probably no casual users at all.
Indifference does not equal smartphone users. I use a phone because I can't afford other equipment, and also like using it. I spend as much time composing and editing as any other photographer. I'm good but not great, but it's not due to the limitations of the equipment, I've seen plenty of worse from people posting a litany of equipment specs with every image. To be clear, I only take issue with your phrase "indifferent camera i.e. smartphone users". I agree with the rest of your assessment.
@@curiousabout1 Sorry, I did not intend to say that all smartphone users are indifferent. I was talking about the vast majority of today's indifferent smartphone users. Of course there are a few not indifferent users. I myself use my smartphone camera now and again.
And of course, the photographer makes the picture, not the gear. And on top of that, a talented photographer sees the motive. The gear never saw anything. 😇
There is a research paper that concluded that nostalgia counteracts the feeling of loneliness, boredom and anxiety. Hmm? This does sound like the time we find ourselves.
When I look at the photos from the photographers you mention from the past its all nostalgia for me. When I look at images of New York, I don't see the thought process of the photographer, the lighting, composition etc. I just see past times.
I was born in 1962, yet I've felt a lot of nostalgia for the 1920s by looking at photos from that era. Just imagine sitting in the Cotton Club watching Duke Ellington and his band play, and the flapper scene. By the way Alex, are you familiar with the work of Alfred Cheney Johnston? Worked in NYC in the 20's, and was a pioneer of both art-nude and glamour photography. His work very much combines the two, and is quite fascinating.
Again, what a wonderful approach in sensing those timeless photographs, free of any regular criteria. I very much enjoy your company and variety of thoughts, together with your experience, through your videos. Thank you so much. A deep rooted true enrichment.
Thank you for watching
@@ThePhotographicEye way more than just a pleasure. Thank you, Sir.
There's something about the images that tell us our own story. I can appreciate something of the elements in the world that shaped my parents because of the images, they've shared from before I was born. Our kids love looking back through older images of themselves and recalling stories. I had pulled out some negatives and old photos one day, and they asked about them. I got my first digital camera when the second one was very little, so they hadn't really had a memory of film. They had a lovely curiosity about how it all worked for us - back then. One of them also asked what the world was like when it was black and white . . . . .. of course, not all our older photographs are colour . . . so they made a logical conclusion. Interesting to think about Alex. Thank you.
Thanks for watching
I remember growing up pondering with wonder what the future would be like. Now that it's arrived, it's become obvious that we've been sold a lie. The longing for simpler, innocent times is the what drives most feelings of nostalgia. Despite the horrors of the modern age, I feel we owe it to future generations to document the decay of our society, so that they don't repeat our mistakes. As implausible, as it might sound, there will come a time when people will feel nostalgic for the early 2020s. One of my most recent nostalgic memories was from February of 2020. I went to a metal show with a buddy from work on a random Tuesday night. I had no idea how dramatically the world was going to change in the coming weeks. To this day, it's still been the last live music show I went to.
Very enjoyable video. I’ve always felt that photography, from it’s inception, was driven by the desire to hold on to the perishing moment. Almost everyone is fascinated by going through a box or boxes of old family photos and musing on the time,place, subject and reasons for the photo. What was going on at the time and how were people in the image feeling and experiencing their lives at the moment? Even now I am more attracted to taking images at historic or at least older places.I think photography and nostalgia, as both looking back as well as preserving the moment, are inextricably linked.
*sigh* Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
As usual, I find you video's thought provoking. Good work.
Thank you
Excellent piece Alex. Very thought provoking.
Thought provoking 🙂❤
I am guilty of trying to make photos look from another time - whether it’s through my choice of film stock, sensor technology or digital processing.
However, I’m aiming for a sense of atemporality - the subject and emotion is the key to enjoying the photo, not the technology, the gear or the era. Thoughts?
Thank you. All the best. 👍📷😎
Many thanks!
Photos are like time machines. As soon as the image is captured that moment will never occur again. Every picture of a scene or a person records a piece of history. Amazing when you actually think about it.
It is. !
The Matjiesfontein cemetery (about 2.5 km West of Matjiesfontein) is also a historical jump, with some special graves and monuments.
Great video !!! Lots of food for thought ......
Thanks for watching!
I had suggested this very idea to you in the comments of another video. However, You took it in an interesting direction great job as always Alex
That’s awesome, thank you.
Im not a fan of modern photography I’m afraid. I think it’s sad that the majority of people are using their phone to document their life. For me, there is a quality to these old photos that you don’t get by snapping on your phone. We have swapped quality for convenience. But the saddest part is that people will also lose current photos over time because they are only digital files and people are taking them to upload to social media and not backing up. Whereas the physical negatives and slides sit in a box and last forever, as these beautiful photos have.
I have often wondered why, and how to use nostalgia in relation to the present. I shoot 50% film, and that alone, sometimes gives my images a nostalgic wipe, and, a lot of pleasure. Often I photograph subjects that are about to disappear, or in decay. As a young photographer, 36 years ago, I was equally obsessed with nostalgia, and nothing have changed for me since. For me, photography is all about nostalgia. Sooner or later, all images will be nostalgia.
My favourite possetions are a collection of old prints and polaroids of my famy going abck the the 60's. I have the camera my father used to make the most memorable childhood photograph I have, both are precious for the memories that go with them.
Nostalgia definitely influences emotions, and those types of images are a recorded history of times past. I think the thing that differentiates Vivian Maier from the rest is her composition and at times you can follow her day from her images, get a sense of the sequence of what she did in that day. She seems to have caught people up close and unaware until the shutter opened. The sheer volume of her images and the hiding them away.snap shots are one thing, but she put an artists perspective in her images.
Most interesting and thought provoking, thanks Alex. In one anonymous image there was a British car that I owned at the time and I was present somewhere else in that moment of time. Then it was modern life and yes, it did make me feel nostalgic. Generally though I look at these old masters and view them as historical documents of interest. Also, Maier, Leiter et al. still can teach us about composition and responding to the moment but for we photographers today, we should move forward, not back.
Hi Alex just to tell you that while you found your best “rainy” photo I found my very best preferred video ok your congr. and thanks
Fascinating discussion and ta very much for another excellent video. I’ve been shooting with a Fujifilm X100V for almost a year now, trying out different film simulations (recipes). I was born in the fifties so well remember the look of film and slides that we shot back then. I’m still discovering the possibilities of “nostalgic” film looks in my digital photography today after years of iPhone and digital point and shoot snaps. I definitely have an emotional response to images of that era even if I don’t know the folks in the snaps. Good points about today’s instant curation … I mostly keep everything!
Thanks for watching
Just watched a video about Jay Maisel, a long time street photographer in New York. His Basic theory of photography are Light, Gesture and Color. He said that a leaf has just as much as a building or a street full of people. That's my kind of thinking.
I've wondered similarly, because I like to take pictures of beautiful things and what I find beautiful are buildings from 100 years ago that give me nostalgia. So I'm trying to recreate the past, in a way. It's hard for me to appreciate current aesthetics enough to photograph them, like the way people dress, cars, houses. I like some of my classmates' photos, though, because they do take pictures of their lives and friends "young people", and it makes now seem interesting. It almost gives me a nostalgia but for the present, for a younger person's life.
good topic, informative video.
Thank you!
I've always been very conscious of nostalgia in photographs. It's what draws me to a lot of the photographers whose work I admire. It's also why I still shoot film and use an Instax camera - I'd still be shooting Polaroid if it wasn't so heinously expensive. I find modern-day Instagram work, for the most part, quite vapid. The problem is that everyone follows trends these days, so everything starts to look the same. The irony of course is that so many try to achieve the nostalgic look with filters.
A very enjoyable video!
Many thanks!
The nostalgia evoked by olden day photos may be because these are snapshots everyone can do. We also know that the photographer could tell the story associated with that snapshot
As always, so well articulated. I still use 35mm film, and sometimes Super 8, because I can’t stand the cold, soulless aesthetic of digital photos. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just trying to create the illusion of nostalgia. I also wonder what my son is going to think of all these film photos and Super 8 footage I’ve taken of him, in contrast to the thousands of digital photos and videos I’ve taken of him. Will the film photos stand out as being special or just a novelty?
As a former photoreporter, I live with ghosts. All those people I took pictures and I live with those photographs but I will never see them again. They are many in my head.
For the nostalgia of photo is because it brings back memories of a time, place, and people I can only relive through the photos. But not all photos will do this. I'm not to keen on using old techniques to recreate a certain nostalgic feel as there is an incongruity between the photo and the scene.
There are certain photos that are timeless. Also photography by its nature captures a specific moment and place even now.
Nostalgia is so powerful. I have inherited all my parent’s photographs going back to the 50s. I can’t bear to look at them yet as I know they will tear me apart.
Your point about questioning the value of nostalgia is a good one, Alex. The visual "time stamp" of an image seems tied to fashion and even to the industrial design of the objects in the frame. A timeless image remains valuable even in the face of changing fashion and historical trends. Ansel Adams' Tunnel View would be just as striking in any decade. Vincent Peters' 21st-century image of Charlize Theron is as striking as Kirkland's 1961 image of Marilyn Monroe (both women cloaked in white bedsheets) while the countless boudoir images of women in the lingerie fashion of the moment look dated to the decades in which they were produced and somehow no longer engaging...
Perhaps art should strive to be timeless. At least sometimes...
Some of those photos you just shared, Alex, reminds me of William Eggleston images.
Hmm, being a Brit, who's never been to the USA, that sense of nostalgia you mention, is quite often lacking for me, when viewing this video and looking at some of these Pictures, except when it comes to pictures of UNIVERSAL, not cultural experience, such as those that reminisce about the experience of Family. If I was to feel a sense of nostalgia about an American city like New York, Boston or Chicago, for instance, I'd say that was the result of watching American films when I was a child. What I'm saying is, is that nostalgia for somewhere I've never been is based on my imagination, fed by 'cross-culturalism,' via some the media. For me, obviously, 'Americana' doesn't do it, but the moodiness of the Paintings of Edward Hopper do. It's the People in Vivian Maier's Photographs that are interesting to me, not the places, even though the interaction between the people and places are what make those pictures so good.
Anemoia is a feeling of nostalgia for something you've never actually experienced.
My father was given a camera when I was very young. He shot Kodachrome on it, mostly of my mother and me, and when he died and we cleaned out the family home and the boxes of slide came to me. Looking through them they had those wonderful muted Kodachrome colors. Regrettably, my father was a terrible photographer, he had a unique capacity to decapitate the subjects. So, much of what I inherited were headless torsos rendered in wonderful shades of Kodachrome.😊
I don't think that your father was quite unique. My mother could always produce pictures of empty spaces with maybe a couple of human body parts protruding into one corner - and the next roll would be identical. In those days of film, adults would look at bad photos and say that they "had not come out" and somehow blame wherever they had taken the film for processing. Digital photography should - in theory at least - have lead to better results!
Digital is not damaging. The manner in which many photographers use digital can be. One of my favorite photographers recently announced he was going back to film because (and I am badly paraphrasing all that he said) he felt he was a better shooter when he slowed down and used film. He, and many photographers, are allowing the capabilities of digital cameras to control how they work. This is not how an artist uses a tool. The best carpenters, mechanics, and photographers control their tools to achieve the desired result rather than allowing the tool to control them.
Fifty years from now, the cycle will repeat. Someone will find a DVC, SD card, or thumb drive full of snapshots from today and be nostalgic for the early days of digital cameras when they perceive life was simpler and better.
So, since you asked the question, 'No, i don't feel some sense of "nostalgia" - i'm not even clear on what that would be like in relation to... anything, really'. Curious, i just ran it by my partner. She's immeasurably more clever than i am - a high-flying PhD in Psychology - and her answer was 'No, i really don't "get it". Maybe we think that it's a manifestation of a particular way of being invested in the Human Thing, but (while common) it's clearly neither a necessary nor universal experience. Whatever, we certainly enjoy 'old' photos, and we definitely engage with them through our own peculiar lenses. Cheers from the swamp.
Always great, interesting videos but this one really hit a chord.
Alex, I'm concerned about your cat. In the last few videos it appears that the spark of life has departed!
My parents had albums and boxes of photos. I asked my mother to make a note of who was in the photos, as she remembered most of them. She said "no one will be interested in them." My reply was that they are history. Family, my father and his comrades in Egypt and Italy during the second world war, their trips around the country after he retired.
My late cousin and his father took many photos, mostly slides, of their trips around the world. I have no idea what happened to them but recall the slide evenings we had after they got back from another trip.
Sometimes I think back about the places I have been when I didn't have a camera with me and now there's nothing left.
And, as someone once said, "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."
I have never experienced nostalgia while looking at paintings either
anemoia (uncountable) (neologism, rare) Nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known.
Those photos in the video were all beautiful, but part of me thinks nostalgia is a kind of dangerous escapism, like fantasy novels and superhero movies. I could be wrong. I'm probably wrong, but looking at an old photo and "missing" it seems like willfully idealizing a time and place. It's a problem for me for sure.
I bought my first 35mm camera in '72... a Konica auto reflex T... still shoot it. I mostly shot 24 exposure slides. Ektachrome 64 speed. Often I'd shoot five or six rolls a month. Yes, I have BOXES of slides and prints... more than makes sense.
Ive tried to recreate a few images with a hint of 60's nostalgia
It may not be true nostalgia. It could simply be that because these older photographs depict places, object, people, etc. that no longer exist, they are unique. But they must have enough familiarity to still be recognizable - yet oddly "not of the now". For example, a photo from the 1960's or 1970's will still have enough visual clues to be old, but recognizable. A photo from the late1800s lacks these modern touchstones so it is just a historical oddity.
Digital or not, my photographs (after 50 years of practice) are still "bleepy" snapshots 😊 Nostalgia is predominantly projected onto the picture by the viewer? For me, the great advantage of digital photography, is the possibility to shoot 24 or 36 takes and select the most atmospheric, tell-tale image of the bunch, without any serious financial investment. Doesn't make me any better of a photographer, but the one in a thousand shot comes a whole lot closer.
Good question: Why are we nostalgic, even when we weren't there? ;-) But I digress. Great Video as always - thanks!
Thank you
Still downlding this video.I bought a few oldies from a scrap market, Can I sell them somewhere?
Each image asks a number of questions if we allow them to.
The Anonymous Project shows how little difference there really is between at least some of the images of the "greats" and those whose work will never be widely celebrated or included in museums or books. This is not to say that they're all brilliant by any means, but it does underscore the fact that some technically weak images can still resonate. Principle criteria for a great work of art in any medium include making the viewer think or feel, and that's exactly what many of these do.
Agreed that way too many images (most of them crap, to be frank) are being "taken" (and worse, posted) since they put cameras in phones--a net deficit for the artform as everything's been watered-down, making it harder for meritorious work to get noticed.
Re curation/archiving, I still have many of my negatives and prints from the film era (as well as those from my father), which I plan to digitize, plus I back-up my RAWs and JPGs (I try to delete the ones I know I won't use, but err on the side of caution), but it must be remembered that even digital files can degrade (and can of course be lost completely). Most of my inkjet prints are done on archival paper with pigment-based inks (claimed to last 200-400 years), but there's no guarantee that they'll remain safe either. It's an interesting technical problem for archivists to address how to preserve photos for posterity.
Personally I find the secondary captured details of everyday life in older images to be far more interesting (and even compelling) than any feelings of nostalgia. For example, while seeing some of these images I found myself looking at background details -- store signs, cars and other items -- far more than what was ostensibly the subject. Maybe that's because I would have absolutely no interest in going back to my childhood even if I could. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's related to why I have virtually no snapshots of my wife, child, parents nor siblings, despite owning cameras for decades. I just see nothing to be gained by going backward. We build on what has come before and certainly, we've not always done a good job, but I feel no attraction to return. I suspect others feel differently, though.
On the streets the older images revealed just how many men wore hats, suites and ties, and just how many people smoked cigarettes. In current times, nearly all my street photos show how addicting and dominate a role in our daily life a smartphone has become. Of course, in looking back at older photos, we do see the automobile, the TV, a radio, and other tech of my age dominating the scene. Photos of kids playing the latest 45s and those of today showing a cell phone in use are somewhat similar, yet I do wonder. What is about a smartphone that demands 24hrs of attention. I am serious, as I do see people on the beach using a phone instead of enjoying the sand and water, people in restaurants in conversation, but not with the another person at the table, and just simply everywhere, as though it has become a part of their soul. It may be worse than TV? Maybe it is like a candy, and people need more sugar. Maybe people are just bored these days and it fills their time. As much as things may appear to have changed, in walking the streets with camera in hand, the more you observe people in their daily course of life, aside of the phone, you pick up on a smile, a smirk, a flirtatious look, a gesture, or just ways of movement you swear was the same as the way things were a half century ago. A couple holding hands -- timeless. Well mostly so. People still dance, sing, throw a ball back and forth, while their dogs is thinking, I can get that ya know. The city parks have changed so little. And we thought that skateboarding was just a fad. 😎 I must say, I don't see Beatle boots around anymore. 🧐
Alex, you leave me utterly confused: what is it you try to say?
(On a sidenote: in the series of pictures you showed us, these of the well-known photographers don't really stand out to me. That is no doubt due to my ignorance...)
at 3.47 Matt Bellamy???
Does it really matter why we, me or you, feel good seeing a photo. Isn't it more important just enjoy the way you can. Of course if you want to recreate that feeling or copy style, or even get tools for your own photography, you have to analyse what is in that photo that touches you, but if you are not, can you, or me, just enjoy, without thinking is it nostalgy, composing, light or motif, which touches me? I personally think we should more just enjoy.
Interesting video. Mobil phones in my mind will never be found nostalgic to look at in a image. I hope I am wrong but I am avoiding them as much as I can.
They are in the momest In the joy Snd just being goofy No one seemed to worry about that it is art It is being in a place in time
I sometimes call cameras "sentiment machines".
Nostalgia in old photographs is a value that is independent of composition and should not be included in judging the creative quality of a photograph or the skill of the photographer. The same applies to exoticism, which is also often unconsciously included in the assessment, especially in travel photography. Or the beauty of a model, the presentation (e.g., in a gallery) of a photograph, etc. All these aspects have a strong influence on our perception of a photo and its market value, but are not a criterion for the artistic quality of the photo. Here, the effect and market value of a photo is confused with its artistic quality.
35mm was known as the two holiday film.
Why do you call it "false" nostalgia. Just because someone didn't actually live the time doesn't mean they can't be nostalgic for the ambience and zeitgeist of that era, nor does it make that nostalgia not genuine. I look at pictures of my grandparents as young adults and from my knowledge of them as old and infirm, and now deceased, I have a great yearning to have know them when they were young and vital; the same with my parents. I have those same desires when viewing images of folks, dead now 50-80 years, that I have no idea of who they are. The boys playing in the rain with a car going by, and a young Alex Kilbee, playing sometime, somewhere, in rain, with everything right in your world, strikes a common chord, in tune and coherent, with Alex Kilbee today. Why call it false. It isn't.
Because false nostalgia is actually a thing. It's the reminiscence of something you have never lived while nostalgia is longing for something you have lived but in your mind it's better than it actually was. Both of them brings some kind of a memory but one of them is actually from your memories and the other one mostly comes from your identity, the stories you've been told, the culture you live in or absorb... Calling it false nostalgia doesn't make the feeling of being nostalgic less genuine, it just comes from another place and is a different kind of somewhat the same feeling. At least this is what I think about it.
@@diegobluc But BOTH are REAL nostalgia.
@@jamesoliver6625 yes, I do not disagree with you, but we as humans like to categorize things haha and is somewhat important that we can see the difference between those two