Every day, I use the camera attached to my phone to capture memories and feelings – yet never quite achieve it. I’ve tried to store them in my phone, but they sit there unloved, taking up space in cloud storage and little in my mind. For real reminiscing, I turn to the albums I’ve collated since starting shooting on film. I feel the tangible weight of the book in my hand and flick through soft images of my friends and family, all taken on a second-hand point-and-shoot camera from 1998. Taken over the four years since I first discovered analogue photography, these photos are hazy and often out of focus, yet enable feelings and moods to flood back far more than an iPhone ever could.
As the imminent return of HMV to Oxford Street and the horrifying re-emergence of low-rise jeans can attest to, we’re firmly in an age of Nineties nostalgia. Film photography, whether taken on a cheap disposable camera, a fancy vintage model, or a new, pastel-coloured model from Urban Outfitters, is just another analogue artform seeing a resurgence among Gen Z. Phillip Grey works at Darkroom London, a community photography darkroom in north London. The studio also runs analogue photography courses, and he tells me that the vast majority of people who take part fall into the 20 to 35 age bracket. “[For] most of them, this is often their first encounter with a darkroom,” he tells me. “Even though they may have been shooting film now for a few years, they’ve certainly not had hands-on experience”. Those at the younger end might have been born in a post-film world, but are now eager to step into the past.
