In Hoyte van Hoytema’s Oscar acceptance speech for Best Cinematography for his work on OPPENHEIMER he made a special mention of the ‘new hip thing called celluloid’. He recommended the analogue stuff, in this case 70 mm film-stock. 

Maybe it’s hip but also old world. A roll of film. In photography after taking 36 photo’s you’re done. Get a new one in. Bring the stuff to your lab and wait for the result. You don’t know what you’ve done. You’ve got an idea.

With music, you play a record. It stops after 15 minutes. Get off the couch and turn the damn disc around. 

So what’s this enthusiasm for analogue. Different reasons, but mostly it’s about image and sound quality. 

Analogue filmstock contains millions of light-sensitive particles. How many depends on the filmstock used. If you look at the normal 35 mm filmstock, this translates to a 5K resolution in the digital world.

But I wonder is that’s the catch. For me it’s the look and feel of the material. The grain of film makes it easier on the eye.

Digital information is generated from an analogue source. It is always a translation. Your eyes and ears detect analogue waves.

A computer needs information it can read. And these are zero’s and ones. I’m not a scientist, but I can imagine some things will be different after this translation. With analogue music you get a warmer, more detailed, softer, ‘rounder’ sound. A CD is crispier clearer but lacks the warmth of vinyl. The process seems to eliminate some of its soul. Whatever that is. 

With digital image there’s the same problem. The analogue image is easier on the eye. The brain sees stuff it is used to. It feels at ease. Not so much with digital. I remember when the digital transition took place in the movie-theaters. The blacks weren’t black, and the brain and/or eyes got tired of looking at the sharp edges and contrasts. Same shit as with sound. 

I guess the material has improved in last decade or so. But still a lot of shebang is made when a film is shown in 70-mm analogue print in the Film Institutes around the world.

All this is old-fart bullshit, but I myself like to play with analogue image and sound. I never took to digital photography and music. I still use my analogue camera’s: Minolta X700 and my pocket Ricoh GR-1. The Last one I bought because I’m a big fan of Daido Moriyama’s work. Check him out. Also I never sold the vinyl collection. I get up off the couch every 15 minutes. 

What it boils down to is these analogue images I shot these last years during our visits to Wheels & Waves and Kustom Kulture a.o., pretty great and very analogue events. 

Joop