Why is Film Photography back?

Photography has shifted, in the last few decades, from a private activity into the public sphere, where our memories are quantified with engagement metrics, and analysed for machine learning. I’ve been wondering what that shift does to our brains? How does it change the ways we think about the past, and what versions of ourselves do we actually post?

To explore these questions I’ve finally been trying out something i’ve wanted to do for years: film photography. I’ve had some ups and some downs and some unexpected lessons along the way so join me as we explore the value of images, how that value has been watered down and what we can do to reclaim it.

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📖 SOURCES 📖

On Photography by Sustan Sontag

Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the contours of the branded self by Allison Hearn

Tweeting ourselves to death: the cultural logic of digital capitalism by Petter Törnberg and Justus Uitermark

On Becoming A Person by Carl Rogers

Also, shout outs to Blindboy Boatclub who has been drawing the connection between Carl Rogers’ humanistic psychology and the perils of social media for, literally, decades.