alt Hacker NewsI believe this is the reason for a return to interest in analog media with both my generation (millenials) and gen-z. I do wedding photography on the side, and the past ~2 years have seen a huge increase in requests for film photography, either exclusively film or as an add-on to digital. Offering film has been one of the best things I've done for my side hustle.
Likewise with the sort of resurgence of vinyl, and the obsession over "old" point and shoot digicams.
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Interesting how this matches the Matrix timeline. According to Agent Smith, 1999 represented the height of human civilization before things started to decline.
Not only 1999 prevents humans from becoming too advanced and invent new AI again, it is a believable and comfortable era. A perfect time, perfectly balanced between analog and digital.
> huge increase in requests for film photography
Also for VHS camcorder footage
This is something I predicted when image/music/other creative art models first came out, as many were crying that art as a medium was dead thanks to Stable Diffusion. And it does seem like I've been right (so far).
The introduction of massive of low-quality creations has made high-quality art much more in demand. Low-quality AI art and music has become a huge blinking indicator that says "SLOP". Hand-made, uniquely styled, quality art now has a "luxury goods" vibe, and people are willing to pay a premium.
When film photography came out in the 1830s, painters and intellectuals were really mad about it commoditizing and cheapening images compared to paintings.
* On first seeing a photograph around 1840, the influential French painter Paul Delaroche proclaimed, "From today, painting is dead!" [1]
* Charles Baudelaire, in 1859: "As the photographic industry was the refuge of all failed painters, too ill-equipped or too lazy to complete their studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the character of blindness and imbecility, but also the color of vengeance. [...] it is obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy" [2]
[1] https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/early-photography
The best weddings I've been to had a photo booth where you can have photos printed out (any number) and texted to you. I think that's the best way to do it. I agree, people like physical photos still. I've bought my wife several different ways to print photos, including a smaller portable printer, and one of those Instant photo cameras.