Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
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Studio Sessions
8. Unraveling the Charm of the Pre-Digital Era
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The digital revolution has forged a new era, and we're all in the thick of it. But have you ever considered the profound impact this shift from analog to digital has had on our perceptions of legitimacy and the way we document our lives? We explore this intriguing question, reflecting on experiences from our own lives, from handwriting in fourth-grade journals to modern Mac operating systems. We also express our nostalgia for the analog days of Starlog magazine and disposable cameras.
As photographers, we deeply understand the challenges and joys of film photography. We dive into the difficulties of finding a reliable local lab for processing and debate the impact of technology on the art. We also investigate how the digital world has altered our approach to creating content and our experience of the world. Join us as we dissect the delicate balance between documenting for content and experiencing the world as it is.
Finally, we delve into the increasing desire for analog experiences in the digital age, comparing various cameras and exploring technologies like the digital bolex. We also reflect on the power of reconnecting with nature and the importance of digital detox. We discuss the impact of our phone addiction and how our sense of self can become inflated in the digital world. Join us on this enlightening journey as we explore the intricacies of the digital world and its impact on our lives.
Remember, this is more than a conversation about cameras and technology—it's about how we perceive and interact with the world around us. So, tune in and let's explore the digital world together. - Ai
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Links To Everything:
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Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Internet's Impact on Perceived Legitimacy
Speaker 1It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer .
Speaker 2It's a huge world that exists off the internet .
Speaker 3It's the opening page of that Steinbeck book . I just read how he gets excited about the sound of like a hove's on the pavement or the sound of a jet engine .
Speaker 2So I think what I was trying to capture when we jotted that down was like this idea of we get really caught up in this when we live on the internet . Quote unquote live on the internet , it's easy to think that if it's not on there it doesn't exist . You know there's if somebody's not on the internet . Are they really real ?
Speaker 3If a business isn't on the internet , are they a business ? You're not on Instagram . You don't have a Facebook ? Oh , you don't . Business doesn't have a website , do they even ?
Speaker 2exist . It's like then you go to a restaurant , it's the best restaurant you've ever had . Yeah , they've never even considered having an online presence .
Speaker 3I'm typing in at whatever restaurant name and it's not coming up .
Speaker 2I think that's funny , how we almost expect everything to have an internet presence . We've reframed our conception of the world to where the lens that we view legitimacy is the lens of cyberspace .
Speaker 3I mean , you set up a threads account right away right , I've never been on threads .
Speaker 2Yeah , neither did I . I don't have a Twitter or an X . I guess I don't have that . I don't have threads .
Speaker 3I'm not dating the podcast .
Speaker 2It's going to be Twitter again by the shit . Cut that out . Yeah , I don't have the . I don't have to take talk . You never got on the take talk thing .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , I mean , you got to convert your long form videos into short and just take talks . Yeah , I mean come on , dude it's the playbook I am .
Speaker 2I almost deleted my Facebook a couple of months ago just to get rid of it .
Speaker 3I think the only thing I like Facebook for right now is marketplace . Yeah Well , that's why I didn't delete it .
Speaker 2I was like , oh , I could use this for marketplace and unfortunately , when I was younger , I linked it to a bunch of other accounts . You stupid bastard . I am an idiot , and that's exactly what they wanted I've never done that .
Speaker 3I've got to sign in with Facebook .
Speaker 2Yeah , I've got to figure out how to unlink that . The couple of accounts that are relevant link through . I think there's only one or two . If I can do that , though , I might just delete Facebook .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2Because even marketplace , I love marketplace . It's great . Oh , audrey has marketplace . I probably need a layer between myself and marketplace . Anyway , it sounds like you might do .
Speaker 3I'm just sitting here like there will be three days where there's nothing . So last week it was the Canon A35F late 70s auto rangefinder that led into the Shure Shot line . It's in the lot , the kid's grandpa , he's selling his grandpa's cameras I imagine he passed away and there's all these SLRs in there . I haven't really been interested in SLR stuff . And then this Canon A35F shows up black . I'm like , oh God , I need that camera . So I message the woman who got , like the who he picked or whatever , to buy the lot of cameras and this is a lot of cameras for $100 . This A35F , even though I don't want to sell it like in working condition , sells for like $200 on eBay and so I was like can I get the A35F from you ? He's like yeah , sure , we're coming down from Sioux City , blah , blah , blah , meet us at Casey's in Missouri Valley , iowa .
Speaker 2So I drive up there , that's some deep Facebook marketplace game .
Speaker 3And I'm like I don't know if it works or not , but we take 20 bucks for it . She's like Sure , she gives it to me 20 bucks , I take it home , clean it up .
Speaker 2Thing works perfectly except the flash won't fire .
Speaker 3Don't give a shit , don't care .
Speaker 2Not going to use it Never works flawlessly .
Speaker 3The door is a little tricky to open because the light seals are jack . So I take it to Walker Camry's , like , yeah , I'll get the light seals done , no problem . And I'm like and then today I'm looking and an Olympus stylus 105 shows up and I'm like , Damn it . And not only that , but the guy selling it for like 30 bucks . And you know they're worth 85 to 100 on eBay .
Speaker 3So I'm going I can use this camera for my channel , I can experience it and then I could move it on and make a little bit of money off of it .
Speaker 2Were you a fan of classified ads back in the yeah , when you , I was a classified Sucker .
Speaker 3I didn't , I didn't really .
Speaker 2I think Craigslist I was a Craigslist sucker .
Speaker 3Okay , here's the connection . Holy shit , this just all came full circle . Starlog magazine , a science fiction magazine that I would check out at the grocery store and I didn't always have the money to buy it . But in the back of the magazine , different People on , people or stores that are selling comic books based on baseball cards , toys , vintage toys . So you could mail them a self-addressed , stamped envelope and they would send you like a printout of their Vintage toy the catalog of the .
Speaker 3Yeah , no photos , just line items . In what condition they were in . I cannot tell you how many Vintage Star Wars toys I bought from those catalogs . This is the late 90s and I still have all the toys and I would . I would send in To buy them . Usually you had a call and provide a credit card . Over the phone , my dad would give the card , I would give him the cash , yeah , and then the toys would show up a week later in the mail . Incredible .
Speaker 2And now I'm doing that , yeah , and now you're doing the same thing with . I mean , we talk , you know , the eBay , and we talked about the pitfalls of the internet , but it's , like man , sure as a lot easier to just have Facebook marketplace serve you exactly what you're looking for here's .
Speaker 3Here's another level of how bad it's gotten . I will drive around a neighborhood Full of mid-century modern homes here in Omaha , thinking Some older folks live here . You know , maybe in their 60s , 70s . They're people that maybe are more worldly , going to the travel thing They've explored , whatever , I Bet you they've got some cameras . Yeah , I literally sit there and fantasize about knocking door-to-door going do you buy ? I'm not selling anything actually looking to buy Do ?
Speaker 3you know , cameras that you don't , whatever , and if they're like oh gosh , there , whatever , I'd like , here's a card . If you find them , let me know , take a photo , text it to me .
Speaker 2Whatever you want to do , I'm interested in buying this is , this is the , this is the arbitrage , this is the method right . This is you just skip the skip the marketplace ? Yeah , don't negotiate . Yeah , you go to the source .
Speaker 3They just don't me . You'd like to make a couple extra bucks ?
Speaker 2I'm gonna work this neighborhood today , yeah and they're over here like oh man , you just paid for a dinner and you're right , I just got a $300 camera for 25 bucks .
Speaker 3I Shopped my grandma the other week . I had my mom when I was home . I asked my grandma if she had any old film cameras and she's like I think I do . So my mom followed up with her felt the next time that she saw her after we had come back to Omaha . And sure enough , my mom sends me two photos of one of a kind of a Kodak point-and-shoot .
Speaker 3That wasn't too exciting , other than it being my grandma's camera that took literally all over the world and took photographs family photo from my grandma's been to like 80 countries . Yeah like she's been everywhere , and then my grandpa had bought her a Canon . Sure shot one of the maybe late , late 80s , early 90s ones .
Speaker 2It's funny how you have kind of pivoted from Digi cam back to film . Yeah it seems like cuz . There was a moment there where you were like Digi cam . Yeah and now it seems like you're kind of back to like yeah film for now .
Speaker 3And I really like doing both . You just like hurting yourself , you're like what's the most expensive format ? I'm gonna well and I'm using the Digi cam to fill in the gaps between when I finish a roll . Yeah , cuz I don't always finish a roll on one outing .
Speaker 2Yeah , and then it's easy to offload the photos and right .
Speaker 3So then I also want to amass a couple rolls before I send them off for scanning and developing , to minimize the shipping cost and all that stuff .
Film Photography and Darkroom Challenges
Speaker 3So , the Digi cam , which I'm still interested , and I like the CCD sensors , I like everything I'm I'm doing with the Digi cams , but it's a . It has a faster turnaround time , but I'm definitely , you know and this is where it frustrates me a little bit and this might be a topic for another conversation but I'm sitting there going , I'm still shooting digital . Yeah , I'm just taking photographs with film , paying someone to digitize it and then I'm just editing the day like it's not a you know , and I mean like well .
Speaker 2There's . This is if .
Speaker 3I'm really doing it . I find someone , find some access to a dark . I do the process , yeah , I mean this is a disgust .
Speaker 2I think this is definitely a discussion for its own episode . Maybe it's like an episode at a dark room even , because I know we've talked about stuff like that but the inaccessibility of the back end to film photography .
Speaker 2There's a Hole in the market right now . It's not really a hole in the market , it's just not there . Yep , I mean we're seeing . I mean I Think the film market is a little more robust than people initially expect . I mean you raise prices and raise prices and less people shoot film , but it's still pretty popular . So I mean that's a good test for how robust the market is now . You know , during a full economic downturn or something , do people still invest in film ? That's to be determined . But the Real , the film market is robust , but we don't really have Enough of a market footprint to justify that .
Speaker 2And there's , there's some companies and Trepid has , you know , home darkroom kind of thing you can get developing whatever . But you know a lot of the good darkroom equipment . You know if you're doing color dark roommates virtually impossible unless you have access to a Full industrial darkroom right , the equipment's just hard to find , hard to maintain , less and less people that actually know how to maintain it . Scannings one thing . But yeah , if you're doing like full process , it's just . Yeah , there's not a lot of . I Would love to see some of the modern technology , some of the technologies been developed over the last 25 years 20 to 25 years applied to recreating some of those traditional darkroom processes .
Speaker 2I think like color for one could be , like you know , if you have Some kind of digital interface , and like a graphical user interface and yep to do color , traditional darkroom chemical processes , like I would love to see kind of some exploration in that field and you just don't see it happening a lot . And that's the unfortunate part , because it's like , yeah , you're shooting film , but yeah you're , yeah , you're just making digital more complex . Yeah , and .
Speaker 2I , you know there's . If you had a color profile and a sensor that you could just make look the same every time , I think that'd be appealing for a lot of people and I think that's why film is appealing .
Speaker 3But yeah , and I think if I have any , you know sort of like having just I think I've shot Maybe nine rolls of film . Yeah and I haven't edited the second batch that came from Midwest Film Company . I .
Speaker 2You're in that like there's convoluted editing process too .
Speaker 3Especially the way that they do it with the you know a log profile and it there's , you know just a lot of room to To make it look the way that you want to , tons of latitude in those scans and all that . And I have , you know , I'm trying to do it in DaVinci Resolve because of the lutz that you need to apply . I'm Cody , figured out the capture one workflow , all that stuff we've talked about . But you know , the one of the barriers is there's just , there's just a lot of work to get the image , like you know , whereas the baseline with the digital and then this , that's just the way that I edit it , with a little bit of film emulation and you kind of you know , doing some minor tweaks like the turnaround time , is much faster , absolutely . But I also like the idea of Continuing to hone my skills with editing photos and how that might translate also to color grading footage , digital footage and all that to improve there . I don't find that I love that process , like there's something .
Speaker 3It's not the most photography where , like you take the picture , you send it off to get developed , they give you your scan and like yeah the image is there and it's beautiful , but somebody in that lab would have had to have made it that way and made which is is the that ?
Speaker 2the way I Started to look at that at a point was I got , you know , decision fatigue at a certain point . I'm just like let an expert deal with it . Right , who's been doing this ? And yes , it's like you , they're making choices . But I must look at it as the same way as a director has to give up a little bit of yeah .
Speaker 2Um , autonomy when , yeah , handing off to a DP , that's right , still his vision . But you know , that's why you're careful about who you select to be a DP . That's right because you want you want it to hand off to somebody you trust , but at the same time you don't see the director trying to be the DP because , right , it's like I got plenty to deal with over here .
Speaker 3Exactly , and yeah , and there's . So there's an argument that film photography is a collaborative art . And yeah if you work with somebody at a lab or a lab in general , that you know you can develop a relationship . Yeah , a certain lab develops your stuff the way that you like develop a relationship yeah . And and make it collaborative .
Speaker 2I could see that , yeah my dream is Obviously to have you know I want , I want a lab relationship like a close , and I'm a local lab . I that's the one that's one of the difficulties of living in Omaha .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2I just want a local lab experience , but I mean I also want a home dark room , like my ideal would be like a studio this size and then you know whether it's downstairs or what . I , because it connected dark room . I mean , if it was a dark room and like a shooting space , that'd be , that'd be great too .
Speaker 2But yeah , I just Because it's it's a part of the process that I've explored but I've never had the Resource . That's that's kind of a you know giving an excuse , but sure , I haven't had in my mind , I haven't had the resources to do it the right way . Yeah , and I think it's like the painter argument , like how do you paint all the time ? You just have your paint brushes and paint ready to go at any time . Yep , and with me , the dark rooms always been like okay , you gotta report chemicals , gotta do this , gotta do this . And for the masters you know the photography masters who had their dark room set up , it was always they know everything is , the chemicals are fresh , they're doing , you know , they're developing Several rolls a week .
Speaker 3Yeah , and it's just an ongoing yeah so this chemicals running low needs to be replaced . Yeah , it's not on a quay , you know like sort of the ritual it's , it's , it's , you know it's like mowing the lawn . Yeah . Or making coffee in the morning yeah , it's . It's more than that , but it's , it's , it's , it's something that just becomes an actual part of the day , so that if you didn't do it some , you would feel like something was missing and that's it's really difficult to do .
Speaker 2When you are , you know you're shooting many Different Recipes of 35 millimeter . Yeah oh , black and white , I'm doing color , I'm doing this new motion picture film , yada , yada , yada . Yep , that makes it more difficult , but then also , you know , if you're only shooting two rolls a month , is it worth having the dark room set up .
Speaker 2It's like , oh man , this is great . Yeah , well , this is $20,000 to do the whole setup and to do it the right way , and you know what are you , what are you doing with the work . But I do think it's interesting . I want to , I want to , yeah , kind of realize back into this conversation of I mean , this is Ironically , it's the really good discussion to have about it Like there's a huge world that exists off , offline , and this from a personal example standpoint . What comes to mind is Last year was the first year that I became comfortable with Taking roles of film , like shooting roles of film and having no scans of them Mm-hmm .
Speaker 2So , like I have some roles that I've developed and I've actually printed some of the photos through darkroom process and you know I have no digital copies of them . Interesting , and even at a certain point , when I'd send off , especially with a 4x5 , like I'll send off to get the , the scans back and Quality was just kind of like , oh , whatever , because it was just for my mind , I Wasn't taking the photo , because I was like , oh , this is gonna be a great Instagram photo right , this is gonna be , whatever great content .
Speaker 2Yeah , this is good , and I shifted to where it was like this is just work and Eventually I will go through this work and I'll , you know , edit it together in some way or another . But so I have , you know , archives of work and that have no digital footprint that's interesting
Analog to Digital Shift Exploration
Speaker 2.
Speaker 2That's such a hard thing to wrap your head around and I think in 2023 , for a lot of some people are like that , are listening . I'm sure they're like that's all my work . Yeah , I've got . What do you mean ? I've 35 years of that , but you know , for me that was that was something new to wrap my head around of . This exists and it's just as real as anything else . And there's no , it's not a file on my computer .
Speaker 2Yeah there's not whatever , and some of it it's like there is a file but it's really low resolution . It's literally just a reference so I can be like go to the negative .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , like catalog and purposes yeah exactly , and that was a really interesting moment for me , because I think We've been trained over the last 20 years to think that Things If there's not a digital variant , then they don't exist . And I'm just curious what are your thoughts , whether it's a piece of writing or a business , if you're building it ? There's a lot of people who build businesses that are primarily online , like there's not a real human aspect to it , which is crazy to think about because , if you like , 25 years ago that was not possible . It was 25 years ago , but 30 years ago . We don't have to go back far early 1990s , late 1980s , to where it's . You could run billion dollar businesses and there's no you know internet of what the business is .
Speaker 2Everything's done by paper it's filed , you know , carbon , paper and Carbon back-ups Filed drawers everywhere . There's plenty of books that have been written that never relied on any form of digital anything , and so that's just a kind of a thought hole I'd like to dive into . Yeah , the first thing I started thinking about was what's the last ? Thing you created . That was completely Well .
Speaker 3I'm going back to like I literally had like a journal from fourth grade and then I journaled a lot in high school and this was early high school , so it started handwritten . And then my mom brought home an electronic typewriter where you could word processor , where you could like preview a sentence Before you printed onto the paper .
Speaker 2And then , like you , would hit it and then it would rapid fire whatever .
Speaker 3So I took what I had from like fourth grade and anything handwritten and I upgraded its analog form to something that was on the typewriter right . And then when my dad brought an Apple laptop , a friend of his sold him one that he had . This was like the pair thing . This wasn't no , this is older than that .
Speaker 2This was like pre Steve Jobs , not the Clam show like with the colors and all that . This was just a gray utility Dinky like macOS Literally a track ball and two buttons and a keyboard and all that .
Speaker 3It was like , yeah , macOS 7 or something macOS . It was like OS 7 or something , whatever they called it back then , mac classic or whatever and I then took all that stuff that was typewritten and I digitized it .
Speaker 2I literally like a monk like hand type You're like copying the Bible , you're like , oh .
Speaker 3I took a keyboarding and formatting class in high school so I could type fast and I still can type relatively fast and I'm like crazy . But so it wasn't like a huge obstacle to to literally look at the thing and type , you know , type it all up . So I digitized it even back then .
Speaker 2You were like well , like ready to get away from it . You're like God , this is the future , yeah .
Speaker 3Like the computer really spoke to me and I you know it always has , and you know so . Then , from there on out , and any journaling I did because I could type like that was what unlocked it for me with writing , was handwriting was painful .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Typing Over time and typing was , I never got sore and I could type as fast as I could think .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3So like that was the no brainer .
Speaker 2To me , just the act of typing is an enjoyable thing , I think Even to this day .
Speaker 3It's hard for me , even with like an Apple pencil and an iPad , it's hard for me to do handwritten stuff in long sessions . I'll jot down notes , Like . I'll just sometimes just like need to get to something so quickly that I just can't write it .
Speaker 3You're not gonna be writing out your novel , though , yeah , by hand , like yeah not gonna be writing out the novel , although , like when Quentin Tarantino talks about handwriting his screenplays and then like kind of doing a second pass while he types it up , like that's kind of an interesting process to me .
Speaker 2There's something I like about that . I've done similar processes to that , or even , like you do , the first draft on a typewriter and then you keep it on the typewriter until you get to a certain point and then you transition it with the computer , but again with the complexity thing it's just like you're adding all these layers , which is sometimes it's good because it's forcing you to re-evaluate the work , and then with I think that's interesting , though that your drive was to get away from .
Speaker 3Yeah , it was just drawn to the removal of friction from the computer .
Speaker 2Similar experience with cameras . You think ?
Speaker 3Yeah , maybe you know it's weird , because cameras for me in the 90s and early 2000s I mean I was shooting on like a disposable , not shooting on like this was more like hey , I'm going to London , I better take some pictures .
Speaker 2Grab a camera , yeah .
Speaker 3It wasn't like I'm going to do photography while I'm there and it was my default and this was 2007 , was to go get a disposable Kodak point and shoot from Walmart or whatever and take it with me ?
Speaker 2Is it just me , or did those photos look better coming off of that disposable than they do now ? Is that just nostalgia or like ?
Speaker 3did we just have better technicians . I think that , well , the hard part was because you take it to a drugstore and it's printed on a glossy paper , you know , like there's a character to it and there's sort of like a this looks like a memory kind of feeling . But at the same time when I look at those I'm like it's glossy paper , which I personally don't like .
Speaker 2I think it's interesting though you can look at photos that were taken , because now everything is convert . You take anything to a drugstore , even 90% of your photo post shops that do printing 90% of them . What they're doing is they're creating a digital scan and then they're printing , inkjet printing or whatever . And it might be high quality paper , it might be a high quality printer , but that is not the same as photo chemically .
Speaker 2And I think you know , pre 2007 , every Jim , Bob and Joe at Walgreens was a proficient level . They had a proficient level person working in their photo lab and they were doing photo chemical prints and so , yeah , you would take a bunch of photos on a disposable camera , but then you're getting photo chemical prints . And I think that's why maybe in my head , I'm like man that just looked back , Because now you go to Walgreens and they're just , first of all , they're doing shitty scans , they're developing it shittily , they're doing shitty scans and then and it's not a trained professional- it's just some kid who's pressing buttons on a machine for sure .
Speaker 2And they're paying them like minimum wage , Literally plastic , yeah , and you know the turnover is probably every three weeks they have to train a new person on it . But then , yeah , you're getting these scans on , you know , mid quality mass produced paper and there's just not . Maybe this is just me being nostalgic , but I do feel like we had a couple of photo labs and there was , you know , Walgreens was one . There was like an actual local photo shop when I was a kid and we would take our photos there and drop it off , you know , once a week . That was just a habit that we were in , Like we'd go to the photo lab , drop off photos , and it's always fun . You get the little envelope back and you open it up and there's the negatives are in the back .
Speaker 2And then all the photos . We still have those and they just something about them . Just they look so much better now .
Speaker 3Yeah , I mean , I'm definitely drawn to those photos from my two weeks in London and a weekend in Berlin , which is the was the last set of film photos that I had taken since the last three months or so , when I started looking at film cameras again but then at the same time like shooting on some point and shoots that are a step above a disposable camera . So the lens quality is going to be better , but it's nothing or shattering .
Speaker 3But then I looked at the scans from the QL17 G3 and I was like , oh , that's amazing , because it was sharp and it was just , you know , and it was just the log profile . I hadn't done any editing of them yet , but there was an extra level of sharpness , depth of field , even though I was shooting mostly F11 , f8 , that sort of stuff . But you know , there was something really special about it and the magic to it .
Speaker 3So , so yeah , I definitely find
The Impact of Technology on Photography
Speaker 3myself drawn to that . But then from going from the film photography film , taking pictures with a film camera in 2007 , I didn't do shit until there was a decent camera on an iPhone . And I don't mean do shit like go take photographs . I mean , I didn't , I didn't even think about taking photos .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3Which is kind of interesting about this digitizing life thing that we've talked about . I just was always just there experiencing it . I wasn't thinking about either documenting it for personal memory , or how can I turn this into content ? There weren't . You know there was YouTube back then and you know , certainly Facebook and all that stuff was there , but it wasn't until maybe like the iPhone 4 , where I maybe more deliberately took photos to preserve memories but then also to post on social media and you know , start creating something content wise .
Speaker 3So yeah , and of course , now with the film photos and all that we talked about . Like , I was on vacation with my family and I took multiple roles of photos of scenery and light on a garage and whatever .
Speaker 2And I took very few photos of my family Of your kids , your wife You're like oh .
Speaker 3Because I'm like well , I'm not gonna , that's not gonna be content .
Speaker 2Yeah , Well , that's oh , you just answered the question . Yeah , man that question was gonna be . You feel like you were doing that because you were pandering to content . Yeah , right .
Speaker 3Well , that , and the thing that we're talking about as well , which is the world out there . I have to sit there and ask myself how drawn am I to the world out there that I haven't experienced or whatever ? Because I see an opportunity to make content out of it , versus I just wanna go somewhere . I'm gonna take photos that I don't necessarily intend to turn into Instagram post or a YouTube video . It's for the experience with me or my family or with friends , whatever .
Speaker 2I've convinced myself and this might not be true , but I've convinced myself there's a middle ground and I think there is .
Speaker 2And that's why I I mean I love documenting and I it might not necessarily be for content sake , but it is for content sake in the sense of scrapbooking , like I'm gonna be the dad with the annoying camera and the kid's face all the time I'm gonna . That's just . I think there's value . There's value to that and that to me , yes , and so I mean that's just , it is what it is , and my work's always gonna have some form of that . Everything's gotta have some kind of personal connection to it and I'm just convinced that there's a middle .
Speaker 2Like you know , I spend all this time getting cameras down to just the bare minimum . So it's easy to just , oh , we're going on , whatever , well , the camera's just there , yep , and there's not a lot of you know a thought that goes into it . There's not . Oh , I have to pack this and then I have to make sure I have this , this and this and this . It's just like grab the camera and go , these flip things have been a revelation to me because you know , you just grab on in , you can just document . It's so simple . You have two hours . Da , da , da , da , da . You get the black magic even . Um , when I've got it built out right now . I probably need to unbuild it because I built it out to make a YouTube video and I made that , but I haven't used it just for the documenting capability . It's like the best super 8 camera you could ask for .
Speaker 3I really like shooting with mine with the internal battery , knowing it's going to last long and having nothing on it .
Speaker 2But you had two minutes of film back in the day , so you get 15 minutes of footage . If you're shooting with the internal , it's like that's a plus .
Speaker 3Because you're getting the film make effect , Because I've thought about .
Speaker 2well , I need it . I'm literally going to unbuild this after our conversation .
Speaker 3Because I'm like well , I need to put an external monitor on , because the monitor is hard to see , I need to put a cage on it so I can add the extra battery .
Speaker 3And part of me is just like I'm actually I keep trying to find a micro 4 3rds lens that it doesn't even have to be a zoom lens . But I'm like , is there a 10 , 12 millimeter micro 4 3rds lens that I can put on ? That ? That gives me essentially a 28 to 30 , 35 millimeter , whatever it is that I can just go out and shoot with it .
Speaker 2It's like that thing's not stabilized .
Speaker 3Right .
Speaker 2So I have two lenses . I have a stabilized zoom lens , but it's like a 3 , 3 , 5 . Like it's not , this is a 1 , 1 , 4 , or 1 , 8 . And what is this ? Focal length and it's wide , but it's like a little less . It's probably like 35 equivalent . Yeah , I think it might be like a 9 or something .
Speaker 3And that's something like something in the 28 to 35 range .
Speaker 2No , and it works great . It's all manual , manual focus , manual clicks .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2It's . I mean , it's as solid as a rock , it's just a yeah , and it's so small .
Speaker 3Right , that thing is little .
Speaker 2And I mean , you know how small the camera is when it's not built out , so it's actually a pocket camera . And I'm like , you know , I'm like , oh , I want to buy a super 8 camera . And it's like why give ? A beautiful image and it's so unassuming and you can just strap it on . It's not going to be as data intensive yeah , because it's 1080 .
Speaker 3Carried around all day .
Speaker 2You throw one battery charger in your bag and you're good to go for a week , and you know . And then like the same with the film cameras . So I'm just convinced there's a middle ground and I think these cameras are the middle ground .
Speaker 3You have your phone , which is like I don't know , it's kind of it's just not inspiring .
Speaker 2It's just not inspiring . But then you have an .
Speaker 3FX3 or whatever .
Speaker 2Ray Dadder , a little cinema camera or something and you're like this feels like work .
Speaker 3This is what I use for work , which I love doing the work , but I need something that just feels like fun , and then it's like and yeah , you can take out these bigger rigs or whatever and take them in .
Speaker 2But yeah , if you've got too much of a build , then you're out there and suddenly you're like oh wow , I'm creating content , I'm doing whatever .
Speaker 3And I'm also just managing complexity when the gear doesn't get in the way and it's inspiring and it's tactile .
Speaker 2There's just something you create . A freedom kind of comes to the front , and then sure can you use that for content . Probably You're probably going to get something that's usable out of it , but then it's also just like a great experience .
Speaker 3Yeah , there's nothing , yeah , and I think you'll see popularity and stuff like this , these old flip cameras , these little . That's the kind of thing with the DigiCam , for me like a little Canon point and shoot . That is simple . It's auto Like part of me is like I don't want it to be my phone . I needed to have some character .
Speaker 3I needed to have some whatever and a little Canon PowerShot DigiCam that I can take when we go to the fair or the children's museum or whatever . It gives me a new , different looking type of image . It's a fun little camera to use . It's not my phone , but then it's also not a Canon EOS R for photos .
Speaker 2I think that feels like a funny how we swing , like we've talked about this before this , just like X point . We got to get better at technology . It's not this , it's obsolete . And I think people are really starting to realize technology is just technology and there's plenty of great stuff that was in the past . That is great , and there's plenty of great stuff that is coming . I'm sure that's great , but I really hope we stop developing . We need better sensors Because at a high end pro level that's fine , but we got obsessed with marketing the professional level stuff to the consumer Because we figured out that we could make a little bit of money doing that and we've just poisoned this whole thing of . There's no intrigue anymore .
Exploring the Desire for Analog Experiences
Speaker 2You and I both love the digital bolex .
Speaker 3Yeah , the D16 .
Speaker 2That's my dream camera , the D16 , I know and I'll never own it because it's $10,000 now , if you can even find one , if , you can find one , yeah , and it's such a cool camera , it has so much character to it , and all we have to do is fly to New Zealand , and we can use one At this point . We should just make our own . Honestly , how much would it cost to actually develop ?
Speaker 3a like , but you can't even find them broken for parts . Yeah . They're just not out there . I mean , I'm sure I could access them by looking at YouTube or whatever , but I've never even really seen any footage from them . Oh , it's so good .
Speaker 2It's so good that Kodak CCD sensor , but the black magic is a beautiful image too . Absolutely and if you're not comparing them one to one and you're complaining about oh well , this isn't quite , it's fine . And I mean , yeah , there's just that's good Robot Ha Robot vacuum . I think so .
Speaker 3OK .
Speaker 2That was weird .
Speaker 3I thought that was our cameras beeping . I was like oh no , we just lost it .
Speaker 2I'm pretty sure they don't beep . No , I think it's . You know . I hope we're getting to a point where one I want to see technology that's ever present . I'm just sick of stuff that's like this . Planned ops to lessons .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2And I want to see stuff that has a little bit of you know just character to it and actual use cases , because yeah it's like my Sony camera . Your what I've got the Sony , I don't even . A7 , whatever the newest one is You've got the newest Canon and it's like we don't . You don't even like you know if I have a job , if I'm doing like an agency shoot or something it's fun to shoot with .
Speaker 3And it works , and it does the job great , it feels good in the hand , no complaints .
Speaker 2But I haven't taken that thing out of the cabinet in a month and a half . No , and even I used to use it for YouTube videos and I love it . I mean it's out of great image . But even that I'm like , oh man , I kind of like the black magic . You know , this is a little more fun to shoot . You can zoom , really get close and just so . I don't know , man , it's , I think it's just this . You know , the middle ground is , I think it's out there , where it doesn't have to be a chore to record things . It doesn't have to be . You're so caught up in your digital world that you're not , you know , in the moment . I think there are . I think the technology has made it difficult for us to feel like we're in the moment . But when you're shooting with a film camera , I don't think anybody would argue that you're out of the moment , that you're caught up documenting .
Speaker 2I think it's the results of the technology . Yeah .
Speaker 3Yeah , and I'm drawn to it , for I think when being digital is your work and your life . You know , with me with the computers , with the live streaming , with vlogging on the EOS R , shooting with my C300 Mark II for you know some of the other videos that I do you know I'm looking for stuff that just feels like an escape from the stuff that's more associated with work , yeah , and or the ubiquity of an iPhone in my pocket at all times and looking at that footage over and over again just being like eh , but 20 years from now .
Speaker 2You know when my kids have all those home movies and all that stuff like they're going to be like oh , check this out .
Speaker 3I found this old iPhone 5S at a thrift store I got to get the 5S footage .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , yeah , that had the best sensor , had the best looking sensor .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , the battery's toast on it , but you know I can plug it in . I found an old lightning cable and I have it routed to this battery .
Speaker 2It's absolutely . I mean , you know it's going to happen . People are buying old iPods because the DAC is , oh it's got this beauty the . Dac is better in this than any other .
Speaker 3And you can swap out the old drive for a little SD card and you can put whatever . And yeah , yeah , we're just , I think we're drawn in the middle ground . Your perfect example you know handwritten stuff , a typewriter , and then this electronic typewriter and a full blown computer .
Speaker 2Yeah you know , it's just and like the what's but what is interesting and I had a lot of . I was like , oh , do you really need all of these use cases ? But it's like I , you know my favorite use case , I guess my , you know , my dream scenario in my head or at least this is what I compare everything to is me out in the middle of the national park and I'm working and I'm disconnected from the world . It's like me , you know Audrey and you know the dog , and it's like and I think that's the same thing .
Speaker 2That's my , that's my beauty , and so I'm like oh , you know it's a pain in the ass to carry around the typewriter and I know like everybody carried around typewriter but it's like you got paper so it's like , but I love writing on the typewriter so it's like , well , I could do the laptop , but that does change the experience .
Speaker 2So it's like , okay , you buy the stupid digital typewriter and it's , you know , but it has been cool , Like you know , you take that to a coffee shop and you don't have to take the typewriter , but you get the same experience . Or you know , yeah , you put it in your backpack instead of having one bag typewriter , one bag for the da da , da , da da . It's like , okay , I've got the camera , I've got the digital typewriter . You know , I've got a couple of books . And that use case is almost like , like you buy a Kindle , like regular books are great , yeah , and I prefer regular books , probably most of the time , but you know , sometimes it's cool just to be able to put the Kindle in your pocket and go .
Speaker 3Well , you know so . So I think all of this kind of swirls around , this desire for maybe more analog experiences and I don't mean just in technology , I just mean in life in general you could argue that going to a national park is an analog experience compared to watching national park contents , or watching national park YouTube videos . Van life , videos and content and sitting at a computer in front of a TV .
Speaker 2I don't think it's a . You know it's not a coincidence that van life took off so much . There is a natural . You know it's .
Nature and the Digital World Connection
Speaker 2I think it's written into most of our code as humans . There's a natural and you talked about it earlier where it's like you just want to be out , you want to be like in nature . It's just written in . We came from nature , it's written into our code and we can try to like , place ourselves in these plastic environments and these cities and these what but Digital , a digital world , yeah .
Speaker 2But you know , there's just , there's a calling in all of us and you can ignore it or accept it or , you know , deny it or choose to believe it that we want to be connected to nature . There's , you know there's , there's just a natural inclination . There was . This thing I read the other day was like when we detach ourselves from nature , we detach ourselves from the divine .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2It's like that's you know , call it God , call it whatever . It's like that .
Speaker 3Right .
Speaker 2And that is what we're in . You know , I , when you're in the mountains , I don't . I don't know what your experience , my experience is always like I like feeling small 100% . Yeah , I mean something so beautiful about that .
Speaker 3And I'm you know , of course . You know I love the idea of going to international cities and other places . You know , experience different cultures , museums , coffee .
Speaker 2Meeting people with different , different outlooks , all that stuff .
Speaker 3But , yes , definitely drawn to nature as well , to the point where , you know , have fantasies about figuring out how to put a pop-up tent on the back of the truck and go more animal-armed . We're gonna figure that out , cause we're gonna do some trips , you know , I think some people would be like there is nothing right now that's keeping you from doing that .
Speaker 2Absolutely your own your own .
Speaker 3I gotta hit some financial milestone , or I've got student loans , so you can't be splurging on a tent or this or that , like where there's a will , there's a way .
Speaker 2As cliche as that is . I mean , you could find we could fund you a topper for you know the price that you pay for two or three cameras .
Speaker 3I could like , oh , you could put it in the back . Yeah , oh you , you like you can sleep on the ground .
Speaker 2It's gonna be okay , but I mean , we could easily get you a topper and do like that . And I think it's . You know , it's just one of these things where there is such a world out and I don't even know if there is a digital proxy for nature you know , if we've developed that , I mean developed that . That's a goofy way of like we're never gonna develop that . No , no , I feel safe saying that we're never gonna figure that one out .
Speaker 2There's not a digital proxy . You can oh , I'm vision pro-ing myself into the middle of Yosemite . You can do that all you want , You're not gonna get the same feeling as standing and looking up at a mountain or looking out on an ocean , that feeling of just existential , you know wonder and dread , and that feeling of you know insignificance , the beautiful feeling of insignificance and connection .
Speaker 3And I feel like the draw to film photography , especially with older mechanical cameras that don't even take like a battery for a spot meter , cause that's something that I've contended with , picking up some of these late 60s and 70s rangefinders is you've gotta have a little , you know , coin battery type thing .
Speaker 2Gotta have the spot yeah .
Speaker 3Yeah , to have the spot meter , which I don't really use very much anyway , but maybe I will , as I do it more . You know I've got this RICO GR right and I fired it up and , you know , hit some of the buttons .
Speaker 2Well , you have it with you .
Speaker 3Yeah , oh , I wanna see it after . But you know you gotta plug in the date . You gotta do all this stuff . Like I gotta do all this stuff , do it . I'm like I have to operate a computer To do , and it's not that it's like I don't mean , like that it's complicated , like I don't understand it , but I've gotta like , do all this computer work to take a photograph .
Speaker 2It's just not this . I mean , I was thinking about this on we were finishing a bike ride yesterday and I was thinking about music selection and how many albums I don't listen to .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2And then I was thinking about the old process of of standing in front of a wall of CDs . Oh my God , this one . Oh , there's this , it's instantaneous , right ? You can see your finding stuff and whatever arbitrary order that you're , you know , maybe it's alphabetical order , maybe it's just you just shove them in there .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2Or you know , that's why we love bookstores . Right , it's this , this instant .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2And there's no digital . You know you can lay out tiles of the album , but it's not the same as you know doing the yeah , it's looking at the the there's a process , there's a , and the same goes with interacting with it with a tool . I think it's just . Yeah , you can have a digital equivalent and it can be close , but it's just not as instantaneous , it's not as it's not as perfect .
Speaker 3Right .
Speaker 2As you know , digging through like oh , look at all these titles .
Speaker 3Yeah . You know searching for a book or a CD , I don't yeah , yeah , I , yeah , and I think those those things all have overlap with wanting to get out and explore Again . I know that I'm drawn Like I keep thinking about like taking like a three day road trip up to the up , the Nyebrara and you know , taking photographs along the way sleeping in campgrounds in the back of my truck and all that kind of stuff . Of course there's a there's part of that is thinking about what kind of content can I make ? Out of that ?
Speaker 3Or is there an article I could write ? You know , like what's it like to just sort of like get really uncomfortable . You don't have all these creature comforts of robotic vacuums and you know A hot shower and smart home accessories , and .
Speaker 2Lights that do Whenever you want to watch it .
Speaker 3Yeah , lights that turn on and off by themselves , all this stuff , like you know what , what , what is , what is that experience like ? And and what , what kind of I don't know what kind of rush or thrill does
Reconnecting With Nature
Speaker 3it give you . A lot of times I do that stuff , whether it's like a , a long , arduous hike or whatever , and I'm sitting there going . You did this on purpose .
Speaker 2You're doing this on purpose . You chose to do this and like . Why would you ?
Speaker 3do this and then , two weeks after I'm back , I'm like I'm ready to go .
Speaker 2Yeah Well , I mean I , I've been doing more cycling lately than I have in in a while , and cycling , running , whatever it is . You know , whenever you do something and you really put your body through strain , there's nothing better to clear your head , to make you feel you know , to clear your anxiety . Oh yeah , dude , we just get all caught up and and oh , I'm just never going to feel good . No , no , no , no , no , no . It's like , just go around the block , you probably feel better . It's funny that you say that .
Speaker 3You know , my wife and I are very communicative about sort of like how we're feeling , like what's our mood , right ?
Speaker 2now .
Speaker 3Are you like , like , essentially sort of like , how can I compensate for any struggles ? That you're having right now , if you're in what we call a funk . You know , sometimes we'll wake up feeling that way . I very rarely do , I'm I'm mostly in a good , happy mood . There are certain things , of course , that can weigh me down , whether it's like too much crap in our house and clutter , or I feel like I'm the only one that's picking up after stuff , little things like that . But you know , this is all minor .
Speaker 2I'll definitely get pointy too . Yeah , yeah , yeah , I think that's yeah .
Speaker 3But there's some days where I'll either wake up in a funk where I just not motivated , I'm down on myself about where I am , this or that or something will trigger it . You know it used to be when I was pursuing screenwriting . A friend of mine from film school or somebody I knew from screenwriting Twitter sold a SPAC or had some big things had some success .
Speaker 2Yeah , he goes like whoa . This is not okay .
Speaker 3Or I'm just like you know , like when's it gonna be my turn , and all this stuff , all that kind of stuff , and you just get in a funk . Anyway , I did wake up in a funk in the last couple of weeks Maybe it was even the last six weeks and I just had to say to myself just go out and take a walk , Cause I've incorporated going on 30 minute walks as just part of my overall trying to improve my fitness , losing weight eating , eating , all that .
Speaker 2There's nothing midday better than a walk , yeah .
Speaker 3And so I took this 30 minute walk in the morning and it just completely 180'd me and it wasn't like you know , I kind of just thought about my day , whatever , like . I didn't really like like doos , anything on the walk . I certainly didn't have a camera with me . I did have some music and I try to listen to music that is doesn't require sort of like any kind of focus and like music with lyrics . I tend to like think about the lyrics and the writing . Like I'm like .
Speaker 2I'm kind of working while I'm listening to it .
Speaker 3So I'll just play like some jazz or lo-fi or something .
Speaker 2See , jazz kills me cause I like jet . I love jazz , but jazz is the same same effect .
Speaker 3I almost . Yeah , I can't not focus .
Speaker 2I almost need like something repetitive . Yeah , like a lo-fi .
Speaker 3Some people might use , like sounds of nature , play , rain or the sound of a beat .
Speaker 2New York city , which is the complete , and this is what we're talking about .
Speaker 3There's something to it , but yeah , so then those things would just would break me out of it and I'm like . You know , part of me sits there and goes and talking about this . You know , is some of what does . It is you're reconnecting with nature in a sense . Granted , I'm walking around a subdivision . You know where it's houses and stuff , but you're hearing the birds the sunshine you're getting vitamin D .
Speaker 3Yeah , the sunshine is big time big time , you know all that stuff and it's like , yeah , doug , guys like this is no big revelation , like way to unlock the mystery of human experience , like being part , you know , connected to nature .
Speaker 2No , but it's . You know , it's one of these things that's blatantly obvious . Yeah , it's so clear and I just it's honestly pitiful that we've become so disconnected from it , but you can find yourself sitting in a room for an entire day .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2And you're just living in this cyberspace the entire day .
Speaker 3Conditioned air yeah , no real sunlight .
Speaker 1Fake food , everything around you was literally processed food , plastic , wood , whatever .
Speaker 3Well wood's not manmade , but the wood , the , the the , the deces .
Speaker 2I mean , some of the wood is manmade . That we're yeah . No , it's yeah . Yeah , we wonder why we're we're so , and it's one of these it's just like we talked about in the last episode where you wonder , man , like what all these problems ? And it's like we're just trying to solve for our own complexity , yeah , like we're trying to solve three problems that we created . Because we were trying to solve a problem that we created . Yeah .
Speaker 2When we had it right at the , at the beginning . And I think there is a cultural movement happening and I think you can see it in these microcosms , whether that's film , photography or , you know , van life or whatever . There are these microcosms that are kind of a springing up because they have to . I mean , it's just , it's you know , it's a lot like the earth , Like at a certain point it's gonna take care of itself .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 2And these things are popping up because I think it's just we bought in on this idea of being in our phones all the time and right . Oh wait , that's not the best . Well , that's not the best way to approach the world .
Speaker 3I really think , too , like these , these art forms really represent what we talked about earlier , sort of this middle ground , right , middle ground for a camera , no , but if you think about some of the more interesting , you know , and I think they are art forms , but you think about surfing , skateboarding , street photography . I know street photography is , you know , you know is in a manmade landscape , cityscape , but there's something about being outside . Yeah . There's suns there , there's trees , there's animals . Well , and it's .
Speaker 3I think , Surfing is , you know , like man and nature coming together . Even skateboarding , you know it's . It's working with Doing stuff outside . What's presented to you , though , right , Pick up basketball , it's working with chance , like you're having .
Speaker 2You're opening yourself to the world , the world's presenting itself to you , whether that's the break of a wave or whether that's you know how what you're gonna find . I mean skateboarding yeah , it's , you're operating with manmade environment , but the fun of skateboarding is you're just going out and you're finding and you're being creative , like oh , I've never noticed that curve before , and the same with photography . Right , you're just going out and opening yourself to the world and you could find things and you're like , oh , I've never seen that tree with that kind of light , or I've never seen that person or that tableau before , and you're taking advantage of these Just things that are presenting themselves the same way .
Speaker 2You know you're on a surfboard , the cameras , the surfboard Right . You know you're interacting with the ocean and what the ocean is presenting , and it's never the same . And I think the exact same principle applies to when you're out the camera .
Speaker 3Yeah , you're taking the world on , and I think that's all connected to you know , getting out in nature , getting away from the desk , out of the digital world that we are plugged into . Yeah , also relates to what we're doing , you know sitting here and having a conversation . You know you have human interaction , obviously during the week . Yeah , you might go to a store and have a very surface level interaction with somebody there .
Speaker 2Obviously , less than I'd like , though . Yeah , especially in the right in recent years .
Speaker 3But you know , the bulk of your intimate contact with somebody is , you know , when Audrey comes home from work at night . And you see her in the morning and then you're pretty much on your own all day .
Speaker 2Yeah , I'm Maggie , right , your dog . And yeah , and for me you go out errands upstairs in her digital world .
Speaker 3I'm downstairs in my digital world yeah we're in these little bubbles , right , and you know , there's sort of a , I think , like almost like an epidemic of loneliness out there . Yeah because of that , where people aren't out in normal social , social situations where they can develop Relationships organically , both , yeah , romantic and friendship and I think , like we're even .
Speaker 2It's it's ironic because we're in a position where there's more Like you . Can you in 1992 you could have complained like I just don't like the people I work with , and the argument is always like well now you don't have to like see them all the time and da , da , da , da , da , and it's like Great . But now that means we can literally go out and create whatever we want , like we have an empty canvas .
Speaker 2Yeah and we're just not utilizing it right . It's , you know , just because you're chatting with 20 people in a discord , or Because you know you , you've got three conversations going on Instagram and you know you're having conversations on your phone with people while your AirPods are in and whatever . Yeah , those aren't this like . Those aren't the same . I don't get the same from those things as I do from sitting here and we're face-to-face and we're just . You know this . This is in in of itself and we're both introverts .
Speaker 3Yeah , no argument predominantly . Yeah , we're very introverted people and I mean I would argue that I , if this is even the correct use of extraversion , but I feel extroverted when I finally do hang out with you .
Speaker 2Or absolutely we get the crew together .
Speaker 3Yeah , all of a sudden it's Much more animated . Joking around , whatever , like you know , we obviously have it's very easy to be around each other . Report there , yeah you know , you , cody , you know , and that's where I I say all the time how grateful I am and lucky .
Speaker 3I feel that 100% in Omaha I have Three friendships with other yeah , yeah , yeah , absolutely are , you know it , at a level where it's like , hey , alex , you want to go see a movie , or hey , cody want to grab lunch today . Hey , dj , are you down for some golf ? Where I think a lot of people , they have nobody , there's nothing , yeah , and it's it's . And even if it's a you know , speaking of male , from the male perspective Even if maybe they're married , yeah , and or have kids , but they don't have like a male friend with something in common where you know so .
Speaker 3So not only is there , from our digital lives , a desire to get into nature , to go out , travel new experiences , unplug from the digital world that I , you know , that you access at your desk , yeah , but then also have those real human interactions . Again , I know we're not uncovering like , but , but basically we're talking about these forces that are at play in our lives , that that drive us into different ways to express ourselves , to explore creativity , to Connect with other people , to go to different places . And you know the , the , the , the . The poll is as we've , as we've been pulled more and more into digital , from yeah , at least in my age group , having really no digital life other than maybe video games yeah , when I was a kid to an entirely digital life where I'm not only yeah , I'm not only consuming it , but I'm also creating it for other , and that's that's .
Speaker 2The funny thing is , and and I've become way more aware of this in the past three years and I try to analog as much of my life as I can , yeah , but Try to go a day without interacting with these digital technology and I would wager for 90 to maybe 95% of the people listening and out there it's impossible . Yeah , I mean it's in my car .
Speaker 2It's your phone , it's your computer smart home wins , the last wins , the last day that you didn't use the internet ? Yeah , not like one bit , right , it's just , it's everywhere . And even if it's like , okay , I'm gonna go watch a movie , yeah , well , you know . Are you watching on ? What streaming platform are you using ? Right , what's ? You know what's what's hot ? Like Books , you know you could just sitting down to read . It's such a People used to just read for six , seven hours at a time . Right now , it's like , for some reason , we've built it in our head is like this segment of like oh well , I read for 30 minutes today Because everything has just been like , yeah , just slice and dice into these little , it's just it's bizarre Do you subscribe to Brian Burke's photography channel on YouTube
Conversation and Digital Detox Importance
Speaker 2?
Speaker 3speaking of digital worlds , that we ? Maybe ? He just had a video come out where he was being , you know , very open and no disrespect to Brian .
Speaker 2Yeah , if I do subscribe I my answer to everything is maybe because I just I'm terrible .
Speaker 3I've been subscribed to him for several months , but it wasn't until this last video that I like , actually like committed his name to memory . Yeah , and it was because his video was very real and vulnerable and he talked about phone addiction and the struggles that he's having , how it's keeping him from doing work , especially short-form content , that's like just giving him a constant like hit of dopamine , you know , and what it was doing to him . I think about that with my kids , of course , and you know them having access to some digital devices in her home or video games and whatnot , and you know , like us talking about what was going on tonight photo gallery , all this like hanging out , like all that Gets me excited , because what would I normally do after this ? I would go home and it's great to have dinner with my family .
Speaker 3Yeah , I put the kids to bed and all that , but as soon as they go to bed , I'm on the couch and it's very fulfilling to me to watch some of this content because it's longer form . I think it is meaningful . People like Brian Burke's are talking about their issues . We need to .
Speaker 2We need to start this . I mean , we need to start fixing our attention spans , is it yeah ?
Speaker 2as a generation . You know , we're two generations lost now and we're we're well into the the you know , miss navigation of a third . It's time that we start making that a priority , fixing our attention , because I think that's part of the reason why there is this bubble of loneliness , because , like you said , you're lucky to have people in your life that you can just gall up and yeah , well , that takes time . You know , it takes time to build those relationships and it takes time to build those tangible things . It takes time to build anything tangible . It takes time to write a page of paper to , you know , fill it with words . It takes time to build something on a wood . It takes time for a tree to grow right , I mean , these are goofy metaphors , but , like , it just takes time . And there's been this instantaneous yeah , effect that digital is had on is that things should be instant . And you know , waiting for my photos to get developed , oh like when it used to be any communication .
Speaker 2You had to wait two weeks you send a letter you . You know you have to wait to it now . It's like we'll send an email if it's . They didn't reply in two hours .
Speaker 3How rude texting texting you know what you've told .
Speaker 2You've talked to me about this before where it's like you'll send me a text and and the word I'm notoriously bad , yeah , text-backed person . It's also just like I don't know where my phone is right now . I just bet which .
Speaker 3that's my state a lot of times you know being friends with you and and and making stuff together . I have grown to just like there's no , no , like like I sat there and I said why , why does not ? Getting a reply Relatively soon after something like I don't want to say get me worked up . But just create a little buzz of something attention . Yeah , yeah , I don't tension , or like a little morsel of anxiety , whatever it is like this thing hasn't been sort of I don't have closure yeah this thing that's out there and it's like , what , like , how like ?
Speaker 2yeah how ridiculous and it's it's funny cuz I mean , I this was just my natural inclination and that's I'm just . We got a wrap this up pretty soon , but it's like I don't put and this is no disrespect to anybody who's texting me and I this is . I want to explain this almost just to let myself off the hook yeah .
Speaker 2I don't put Value into that , I don't . And there are some people that I text and , like I , I love and we don't get a chance to talk . And I do put a lot of value into the text and sometimes my habits , you know , crossover with those people but I , you know , I don't love talking on the phone , but I much prefer that to texting . Yeah , but I much prefer this .
Speaker 3Yeah , I mean we'll sit . I mean we can sit at a coffee shop for three hours and it goes . It'll go by , and it's just and you're almost like if you have to end it . You're like I'm good for more . Yeah , yeah that was seven hours long .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , seven hours , because you just .
Speaker 3And this was the second time I ever spoken to him yeah , yeah , no . And it's , and I wonder if that too is Is indicative of you know he's running a company and he's in a digital bubble . You know not to say he doesn't have interaction or , but then suddenly it comes .
Speaker 2But then suddenly you're like sitting across from someone and you have good chemistry .
Speaker 3There's , you know , whatever all that stuff lines up and it's like you just consume it voraciously in a sense . Well , like there's some Deprivation that you've yeah , you're trying to .
Speaker 2You know you're your reservoirs empty . Yeah yeah yeah , exactly , I think .
Speaker 2I think that's a good place to end it . But I mean , if you know , I Think if we had anything to put out there , it's just like go have a conversation with somebody with a stroke I found myself even really excited lately about I'll be walking down the street and just you know , removing that fear of you . Almost have to remove that sense of self like Self-projection or self judgment that you get , because I think that prevent like everybody's like oh , somebody's gonna judge me if I but just like smiling at people , like oh , how's your day going .
Speaker 2Yeah , starting a random conversation and like , yeah , sometimes you start a random conversation and it's like I got a place to be , I got a thing to do , and it's like I gotta make some content .
Speaker 3I get it , you're busy .
Speaker 2But like look , a 25 minute conversation with the strangers , not gonna kill you .
Speaker 3Especially . It's probably one conversation They've had it .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , well , and you know , if it helps to see it from from this side of it , it's like that could also be the conversation that sets up Something that you've been wanting to have a domino effect .
Speaker 2Yeah , and that I don't think that should ever be the intention . No but that is you know , that's just a thing . That's how things happen , right . And I mean just go have a conversation , go sit in some grass , like , go for a walk , like I think Don't over complicate it . You know , if you're feeling down , maybe it's because you're a little bit detached from nature . I mean that's why , that's why winter kills me so much here .
Speaker 3And and I'm really gonna try to figure out how to embrace , like how to embrace winter . I've I've all winter long took two walks a day downtown Just as part of my exercise , yeah , but then also to disconnect . I mean , I've had music on but , you know , occasionally listen to podcasts , but I'm not even listening to podcasts when I walk out anymore , because it's it's a different state . We won't go too far , but the , the , the photography component in going out and doing photography to me has become this Middle ground in a number of ways . I'm especially with film photography . I'm not holding a computer .
Speaker 3Yeah , and I'll me a computer , that the camera is in a computer , that it's so cool and complex that I'm like using it as a computer . I Am sort of out in the world , I'm doing something that's away from my digital world , even though I'm ultimately going to be creating something that I'm gonna transfer back into that digital world , the photos I take , whatever . But I think the rush and a thrill I've gotten from going out and doing urban , landscape , street photography , documentary photography is , you know , being unplugged from that digital world and kind of listening . It's just sounds so corny , but listening to the source , the universe , yeah .
Speaker 3just interacting with what's presented to you , yeah , and I think when people go to nature , like it's so , it's like sort of shoved in your face , like these mountains , this lake , this stuff is amazing , like like look at what just exists out there . Yeah , and when I do that in a city or urban setting , a suburban setting , you know like I'm looking for that and then I can , yeah , capture it when I don't know they're like you , you keep the photograph for yourself .
Speaker 3It's , it's there , yeah , analog , or you digitize it to put it out , to put it out , to share the work .
Speaker 2I think you know like Vivian mayor took all these photos and no one knew they existed , right , it's like that didn't make her any less photographer .
Speaker 3No it sure didn't .
Speaker 2And I think you know we talked a little bit about that idea of like synchronicity and just , you know , when you open yourself up and you're willing to listen to the world , you , you know , maybe this is just because we have , you know , we try to create these patterns from everything . That's just like the human , the reaction that humans have . We try to place our pattern on everything . But it does seem like when you are open and you're willing to listen that Things start to connect .
Speaker 2Yeah you know , we have all of these random things that are on our mind and then we sit down to have these conversations . I didn't even consider this connects to this , and this connects to this and just everything connects . And you . It's like that feeling in nature where you feel small , smaller than you've ever felt , and more connected than you've ever felt . Simultaneously .
Speaker 3Yeah , I think and I think that
Digital Worlds' Impact on Reality
Speaker 3is . You know , our digital worlds can sometimes Inflate our sense of self . Yeah , we are the center of the Digital world , and then when you go out in the world and you listen while I'm taking street photography , when I go out in nature , it brings that , brings that down . It brings , it , brings things back down to reality , which is , you know , you are not that center and being a youtuber and having a community and an audience that watches your videos and all Especially you've had .
Speaker 2You've had quite a bit of success too . That's easy to be like it .
Speaker 3I am the shit it can make you feel like you're the Sun in the solar system . Sometimes , and not necessarily in like ungrateful or an egotistical way , or my followers come Like a prophet or something , but but it it can . It can lock you in to sort of Thinking that the , the digital Stuff is , comes from you , whereas when you go out in the world it's yeah . Reality is coming at you and there's a lot more nuance in the world .
Speaker 2Yeah , in reality , reality has a lot more nuance than yeah than what the digital world has , and I think nuance is a . It's a critical thing that we lack these days .
Speaker 3Part of that , I think , it's just because we've well , everything you know , everything's a binary , yes , and trying to see the gray .
Speaker 2It's funny like yeah , we're the code is rewriting our code how we ? Yeah how we it's rewriting our metaphors , how we , yeah , structure the world , yeah , or conceptualize the world , and that's that's interesting , but I think that's that's a good thing to wrap it on .
Speaker 1And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer .
