Same as it never was : Analogue photography and its field in the digital age

This study examines the culture and values surrounding the analogue camera and the analogue photography today. The aim is to answer the questions of how the field of analogue photography look like? Why it still exist? And what the role of analogue photography in a digital context is? Through qualitive interviews with six persons who practices analogue photography the study examines their field, and reasons for choosing it over digital. Based on theories by Pierre Bourdieu the analysis shows the fields positions of power, and identifies the capitals that are valued and why they are valued. The interviewees describes the benefits of the analogue in relation to digital photography as more valuable and more esthetic. They say that the randomness and imperfections of the analogue has artistic and esthetic qualities and advantages. The study connects this with analogue nostalgia, and Hartmut Rosas theory of resonance. With a theoretical framework based on Zygmunt Bauman and Christopher Lasch the study analyzes analogue photography in a digital context. The study finds that analogue photography is nostalgic in the sense that it is practiced in relation to the digital, and in some cases as a way to escape and oppose digital society. Further the study suggests that when the interviewees uses analogue photography to oppose the digital in favor of the wellbeing of oneself, it could on the other hand be a practice in conformity with modern society despite the interviewees efforts to oppose it