This week, a new range of Google smartphones capable of AI image generation has been launched. But for an increasing number of people, the appeal of a less cutting-edge piece of equipment is proving hard to resist: the point-and-shoot camera.
The US footballer Megan Rapinoe was seen snapping from the stands at the Paris Olympics. The model Alexa Chung captioned a recent Instagram of her with a camera: “Just another Millennial with a dependency on Snappy Snaps, fighting digital threat with an analogue mode. 😑” A recent glimpse of home life for Rihanna and A$AP Rocky showed a disposable camera lying among the clutter. Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift have both been snapped holding their point-and-shooters.
A mixture of early 2000s digital cameras and film cameras, a new generation are also embracing the old technology. This week on Instagram, Myha’la, a star of Industry, which just returned for its third season, posted a selfie holding a point-and-shoot. The Bear star Ayo Edebiri took her own camera to the Emmys. Both are 28. The model Bella Hadid, 27, is a fan. Online, gen Z content creators give cameras the TikTok treatment, seeking to deinfluence people from the latest It-product and offering dupes for expensive models.
According to a study earlier this year from Cognitive Market Research, the global film – camera market value is on course to reach £303m by 2030, up from £223.2m in 2023. Kodak has seen demand for film roughly double in the last few years and in July, Harman, Britain’s only manufacturer of 35mm film, announced a multimillion-pound investment in new equipment inspired by growing demand. Tesco, which still has more than 480 photo-printing locations, has seen an uptick in demand for its film processing services with usage up nearly 10% this year.
Earlier this summer the Pentax 17 was launched to become “the first film camera to be made by a global camera brand for 21 years”, according to Paul McKay, a co-founder of Analogue Wonderland, which sells film products while seeking to support the growing number of analogue film photographers. Pentax “had to bring engineers back out of retirement … to teach younger engineers. All this because they thought this market was “growing and wasn’t going away”.
Shops catering to younger crowds, such as Urban Outfitters, are selling Hello Kitty-themed disposable cameras, Fujifilm Instax Minis in lilac and matcha-green and Lomography cameras.
But many of the younger generation are looking for their cameras secondhand. On the secondhand site Depop, searches are up 51% since the start of the year. Sarah Kidwai, 25, has captioned one of her TikToks attempting to deinfluence viewers from buying the digital Canon G7 X: “You don’t need to spend $700 on a camera, buy one from eBay to slay.”
Part of the appeal of film point-and-shoot cameras, as opposed to digital ones, is the look of the photographs. Emily Dinsdale, Dazed magazine’s arts and photography editor, described the aesthetic as romantic. “Even the mistakes are romantic – the light leaks on the first few frames of a new roll, red-eye and grain.” On a feed full of glossy pictures, analogue demands attention.
The images resulting from real film cameras will often have “that lovely nostalgic grainy film quality”, full of charm and imperfections, said Eliza Williams, the editor of Creative Review.
For some older users, it is about nostalgia. While, perhaps for younger people in particular, “a certain amount of the attraction to cameras”, according to Williams, “is the idea of them as an object – they are often beautiful things to hold and look very cool in comparison to everyone else holding up their phones”.
Cameras tap into the resurgence among gen Z for all things Y2K, from low-slung jeans to velour. “The return of the ‘indie sleaze’ era of the mid to late 00s has been well documented,” said Louise Yems, the strategy director at the creative agency and internet and youth culture specialists Digital Fairy. “During this time, digital cameras were a pretty consistent presence.”
She points to the resurfacing of nostalgic tech more broadly across internet culture, citing this video of an 80s party shot on Super 8 going viral as well as “early internet design codes, like Frutiger Aero, [that] are also regaining attention”.
The “coolness” of cameras is being harnessed even when no such technology is being used. In the new season of Emily in Paris, released to a cacophony of derision and joy this week, the titular character’s phone case mimics the look of a point-and-shoot camera, cloaking her relentlessly-on smartphone in more analogue trappings.
“On a deeper level,” according to Yems, “Gen Z are the first generation with the ability to capture their lives in a totally seamless way. No full memory cards. No hours spent painstakingly transferring your videos or photos from one device to another and then to Myspace or Facebook.” As such, she said, “the process of using a point-and-shoot camera imbues the output with meaning, intent and tactility”.
In a survey that McKay carried out this week, the number one reason that people gave for shooting film was that it helped them slow down (66%). “There’s a mindfulness,” he said. “People talk about mental health a lot in this generation when they talk about film photography.” Those choosing to develop their own photos rather than rely on Snappy Snaps will be slowed down further.
Dinsdale thinks the uptick in the use of analogue cameras points to a desire for authenticity in an era where deepfakes mean distrust for the visual image. “People trust photographs taken with a film camera more than a digital photo,” she said, “and this feeling will increase as AI-generated images become more prevalent.”
She added: “It comes back to the idea of pictures on our phones not being as special as pictures taken on film,” given that “digital photography and smartphones have really changed the currency of images”.
For Williams, “at a time when we are all – but particularly gen Z – looking for some release from the pressures of daily life and the addictive qualities of screens, cameras and taking photographs offers a sense of nostalgic pleasure, which feels wholesome and arty while also making you look cool”.
