dreXeL's Blog - Date Archives

Back to Basics

by erica falke | May 8, 2009 | Uncategorized

After years of study and practice with Photoshop, Illustrator and Corel Painter, my life savings spent on iPods, iPhones, iMacs, Macbooks, digital cameras, study of html and css, countless hours reading technical blogs and trying to stay on top of every new development, I’ve come to realize something…

It’s comforting to return to simple things. And there are certain qualities about earlier technologies that don’t exist in later ones. There’s a pride in doing things the original way that they were intended to be done. So it’s no surprise that so many people still prefer filming with Super 8 instead of digital, or making cakes from scratch when the mixes in a box are so awesome. Or handcutting stencils despite how long it takes and how badly your fingers hurt afterwards.

I bought a cheap plastic polaroid camera last week for $10 from a woman on Craigslist. It’s the first time I’ve ever owned a Polaroid camera, despite always wanting one as a kid. When I posted the scanned results of my very first Polaroid photos on flickr yesterday, I was asked what I used to get the effects I got. I laughed because I used nothing. I used a piece of plastic and pushed a button. I even spent an hour that day looking for the place where you put the batteries for the flash to work on my new cheap piece of plastic camera. I asked people in the line at Duane Reade. I made phone calls to professional photographers. Finally I found out that the energy needed to power the flash is actually INSIDE THE FILM. I was amazed. It really made me rethink my viewpoints about technology, my condescension of everything that isn’t the newest, best, latest, coolest thing.

Perhaps what’s coolest is what came first.

No, I’m not going out and buying an abacus. I’m just sayin…