Photo Filter Apps: Understanding Analogue Nostalgia in the New Media Ecology

Abstract

As digital media have become more pervasive and entrenched in our daily routines, a nostalgic countertrend has increasingly valued the physical and tactile nature of the analogue image. In the past few years, technologically obsolete devices, such as lo-fi cameras and vinyl records, have not faded out of sight completely but are instead experiencing a comeback. At the same time, digital media capitalise on the nostalgia for the analogue and fetishise the retro aesthetics of old technologies. This article explores the emergence of photo filter and effect applications which allow users to modify digital photos, adding signifiers of age such as washed-out colours, scratches and torn borders. It is argued that these new technologies, with programs such as Instagram, Hipstamatic and Camera 360, bring back the illusory physicality of picture-taking through digital skeuomorphism. Drawing on media archaeology practice, this article interrogates the limits of the retro sensibility and the fetishisation of the past in the context of digital media, in particular by focusing on the case study of the start-up Instagram. This photo filter application neither merely stresses the twilight nature of photography nor represents the straightforward digital evolution of previous analogue features. Rather, it responds to the necessity to feel connected to the past by clear and valued signs of age, mimicking a perceived sense of loss. Faced with the persistent hipster culture and the newness of digital media, photo filter apps create comfortable memories, ageing pictures and adding personal value. As such, it will be argued that this phenomenon of nostalgia for analogue photography can be linked to the concepts of ritual and totem. By providing a critical history of Instagram as a photo-sharing social network, this article aims to explain new directions in the rapidly changing system of connective media.

Imagen Hauntológica

“…Dichos filtros transforman la imagen emulando particularidades visuales consideradas como clásicas o vintage, que sugieren provenir de una época pasada, por ejemplo imitar el tono sepia de fotografías familiares envejecidas por el paso del tiempo o el blanco y negro, sin embargo "los filtros retro, las motas de polvo y los efectos de halación no pretenden recrear el pasado exactamente como era; su adopción es un acto intencionado para desafiar la temporalidad y jugar irónicamente con ella." (Caoduro, 2014). La cultura de la cual emergen los filtros afecta directamente los procesos modernos de distribución de fotografías imbuidas con una intención que juega con la temporalidad de la imagen, la Figura 2 indica ejemplos de una fotografía procesada por filtros de Instagram y VSCO.…”

Algorithmically Mediated Nostalgia through Recordings of Post-Communist Parties on TikTok and Instagram

“…A notable consequence of social media platforms is their role in amplifying sentiments towards older media forms, especially analog photography, and video production. This interest was also reflected by the popular usage of filters that add analog aspect to the images on Instagram (Caoduro, 2014). Furthermore, the analog recordings as media objects were also discussed as elements of nostalgia.…”

Smartphone photography and its socio-economic life in China: An ethnographic analysis

“…Of course, to appeal to more mianzi , one needs to familiarize the operation of smartphones and relevant apps in order to generate aesthetically satisfactory pictures. According to ethnographic materials and extensive aforementioned literature, common expectations of smartphone-made pictures include two simulations: (1) the bokeh effect originally caused by mechanical cameras’ depth of field, now achieved by algorithmic calculations based on a double-lens hardware system, an industrial standard for mainstream smartphone manufacturers; and (2) the ‘vintage’ effect derived from analogue photography (see Bartholeyns, 2014; Caoduro, 2014; Jurgenson, 2019, pp. 1–4 for discussions on such an aesthetics and nostalgia).…”