An image I took of NSACAR driver Toni Breidinger at Salem Speedway, emulated as if it were taken on film stock
If you pay attention to the filmmaking world in regards to travel, sports, and music, you'll have noticed a pretty cool trend start to pick up in the last couple years. Creators have been starting to blend modern cameras with vintage style film looks, creating this myriad image that somehow manages to breath both modernity and nostalgia. It's an interesting reversal as technology improves and cameras continuously progress to be sharper, clearer, and cleaner, that people are now reintroducing elements such as grain, dust scratches, and halation in to their footage during post-production, the very things that camera manufacturers have worked so hard to eliminate. There's something deeply sentimental about it, the richness and depth of the color, the roughness of the grain, the glow around certain colors as if the imperfections from the film capture and development processes were somehow leaking in to our new-age digital processes. Videos in this style have taken over all types of genres on social media sites like Tiktok and Instagram, ranging from cinematic of Swiss mountains to basketball highlights.
This trend comes at the same time as a massive resurgence in film photography. Previously an outdated medium reserved for the occasional hobbyist, the casual point-and-shoot or disposable camera trend has taken over, even as iPhone cameras are significantly better and only continue to improve. Why would anyone carry around a 20-year-old camera with a set number of exposures and an inability to review photos until weeks/months later when you've paid a lab to develop them? It's all in the look- the vibe. Something about old school portra or cineon makes the memories captured just a little sweeter, the limitations of the cameras makes every photo just a little more intentional. Scroll thru your Instagram feed and there's a good chance someone's most recent dump has at least a few disposable photos thrown in. There's even iPhone apps like Lapse or Dispo now that emulate the look for you.
It'll be cool to see how long this trend lasts, if it gets big enough that companies/major name celebrities start picking it up, and what comes next.