Last Updated on 10/30/2024 by Chris Gampat
While I’m not calling out Digital Camera World in this article, I am addressing something that they reported on Fujifilm saying. According to them, young people are no longer practicing photography. As a middle Millennial who is the spiritual big brother to many members of Gen Z and the uncle to many members of Gen Alpha, this has to be said: that statement is one of the most corporate Boomer things I’ve ever heard. Many of these companies rely on research data that removes human elements from it and doesn’t actually get out there to realize what’s happening in front of them. So let me address what a company selling cameras solely on the visual aesthetics of film cameras should realize.
Editor’s Note: we’ve made corrections to this article.
Editor’s Note: I borrowed that last statement from Feroz Khan, the site’s long-time Photo Editor. Amendments are coming to this article as well as I acknowledge some of this has apparently been misinterpreted and distorted from the original source.
Update: October 30th 2024
Originally our article was based on a piece by Digital Camera World. But the original author of the article from PhotoTrend reached out to us. Here is their article at this link.
Below is their translation of the relevant section into English provided to us by Damien Roué
Here is my translation into English :
What do you think the new generation expects in terms of camera/video equipment?
The new generations are very complex. Young people no longer practice photography in the same way as their parents or grandparents. They don’t buy the same devices. All types of profiles come together: some are increasingly attracted to vintage design, and others have real questions about artificial intelligence, for example.
With this in mind, we are doing edits to this article; and still very much so stand by our opinions. But we also also making corrections.
Young People Aren’t Practicing Photography
“‘Young people no longer practice photography,’ asserted Franck Bernard, director of Fujifilm’s photo division in France, in a recent interview,” is the quote that DCW states. The fuller statement is more about how younger people aren’t practicing photography in the same way as their parents or grandparents. And this is very much true in some ways. They’re not necessarily buying the latest gear. Instead, they’re going after vintage products. Franck probably hasn’t realized this, but millennials did the same thing. We went after vintage camera gear primarily because we were broke and graduated into the 2008 time economic recession and all the timing around it — at least elder and middle millenials did this.
Today, Gen Z is mostly going after it because of the cool factor and the difference between a phone. They go after vintage cameras partially because they’re broke, but also because of the unique look that they deliver. The same brands that complain about this audience have also worked to do nothing else but deliver cleaner and more clinical looks to their images while patting themselves on the back. However, what people want more of is lens character and quirkiness. To that end, they want something that feels a lot more authentic instead of being so modern and close to reality.
Photography isn’t supposed to be virtual reality — nor are the movies. This is why so many film emulsions were made: because they all deliver their own unique look right out of the box. These days, all the outputs from cameras look the same. This is even more amplified with smartphones as Samsung, Google, and the iPhone all do pretty much the same things to their images.
Still, they’re not clearly defining who young people are, but they surely are practicing photography. And if they aren’t they aspire to one day do it at a point where they can afford it. We were all like this at one point or another.
But here are some other truthful statements:
- Young people are buying old school digital cameras because of the vintage look and the aesthetic. It’s far different from the well manicured looks that Fujifilm and others do. Perhaps brands should consider targeting this segment of the market with more authenticity and less crazy processing powers.
- There are tons of 20-somethings shooting film photography. And there are also loads of them in schools across the world that shoot photos. They’re part of the reason why so many vintage film cameras end up being so expensive on the second-hand market.
- Fujifilm and all the others should probably get over the fact that they’re going to lose the “creator market” to smartphones and instead become a premium niche product the way the watch world did a long time ago. No one needs a camera these days when tablets, phones, and computers have them all built in.
- Phone photography is still photography if they’re putting effort into it in-camera
- Instax sells very well: in fact, if you considered it part of camera sales, Fujifilm would probably be larger than Canon.
- Instagram and TikTok only care about video content: and Fujifilm, amongst other manufacturers, doesn’t do enough in the wellness market to help promote still photography as a way to slow down and be at peace. I’d know, I pitch advertising offerings like this to brands all the time.
- Young people cannot afford brand new production cameras because the economy is terrible and they’ve graduated into a world where rents are sky high, they might never be able to retire, credit card debt is insanely high, and the iPhone does more than enough of what they need. If you look at it one way, there has never been a better time in human history for a young woman to get into using a camera and to get on the web.
- Flipboard is still a place where so any educators teach and share photography-related materials with their students. And it brings us a fair bit of traffic.
- The Phoblographer is an accredited publication: which means that schools actually actively include us in their curriculum. You can find more of that in our media kit on this website.
- Millennials are our largest readers. Gen Z is the next largest reader group.
- Camera executives look at data and make the same assessment that an AI could. So in that aspect, an AI can easily replace them. Where they need to differentiate themselves is by going around, shooting, spending time amongst normal people, etc.
- Pretty much all of these camera brands forgot who they are because they’re all too busy trying to copy Sony’s strategy.
Shooting Video: The Return of the Camcorder
Here’s a crazy thing that I’ve noticed just by going around NYC. People are using camcorders again. I’ve been asking for brands to bring them back for years and to separate still cameras and video cameras. Manufacturers can do a much better job by not stuffing a million features into a single camera and instead focusing on making specialized devices.