superdenim

Your perception is the only truth. It is what informs your experience, and shapes tomorrow's truth in the light of new perception. Magic and meaning is everywhere, in everything, but it is entirely unique to the observer. We (as a collective humanity) often put to much external value on that truth, particularly when a collection of individuals experience the same truth, and thus try to enforce it upon others as a universal truth to shape their perception. Please forgive the philosophy, feel free to ignore it as well. Its my perception anyways, which doesn't mean its true.  

To offer somewhat of a different perspective here that has little to do with old repros per se, nostalgia is a powerful drug. The search for “authenticity” is often a search for feelings one had as a youth, when everything was more exciting because one was young and because there is a sense of discovery at that age that there won’t be when you’ve lived longer, and seen more. It’s not to say that the pursuit of nostalgia is problematic, but one will simply never recreate the feelings of that age. It is a chapter in life. Now we are in a new chapter.  There are plenty of brands here that I would contend exude the passion some probably found in the original Osaka 5 works. And maybe young people finding them today will have the same feelings about them twenty years from now. Tender, Freewheelers, and Ooe, (and TCB as noted) for example - all know how to do IG , yes, but they also clearly and patently make what they love and it shows in the clothes - those of us that have them probably appreciate them largely for this reason. There are things from the past worth holding on to, but we can’t completely. I also don’t mean to take anything away from collecting older models - if that’s your jam, by all means. It’s fun to go searching and find a treasure, absolutely. It just doesn’t mean that there isn’t something out right now that lacks that same magic. These are just perceptions.  I use Leica digital Monochromes for my work. I use them because damn are the files so much better than a 35mm negative, and they make pictures possible that weren’t before. I’m stubborn and want the camera to feel like the sort I used for years, but that’s the irrational part of me. They are an objective improvement compared to the negatives you’d get from tri-x run through an analog M, and the prints (that I do digitally) have their own unique and beautiful presence that a silver print differs from (not better or worse). But, I came up shooting film for a good while, I shot it for work when I had the budget, had to turn around that shit on deadline for magazines stubbornly when digital was in full force already because 10 years ago medium format film still had a very demonstrable advantage - as of about the 36 and 40 mp sensors in the D800 series or the Sony A7R series, it was gone. And I was happy to let it go. I still have my Rolleiflexes and M6, beautiful mechanical objects but they sit in a case because as photographic tools they’re not as good for most purposes. (Some specific purposes - I’ll never tell someone what they need - I’m sure can be found). If one enjoys the process more, that’s great. Enjoying the process is the most important part of making things, most of the time. But careful not to hold an idea that it’s somehow something more real or pure because it’s older or slower etc. And there’s nothing that stops one from being deliberate on a digital camera. I get that the roll of film presents a hard limit on things, but there’s nothing stopping one from just shooting a few deliberately made pictures even if you can make 1000.   Yes, we are awash in more plastic and more fakery and more advertising than ever, and it can make the good stuff hard to find, but it’s more out there than ever. Maybe this is because I work in the arts but there is great new work being made now, all of the time, and the idea of “the good old days” is a mirage that will never materialize because the way it exists in one’s head now is different than it was even then. Realizing this probably belongs in the “nonsense” thread - mods feel free to move, or delete even if this is too insufferable ha. 

I'll let you know what I find out.

@Broark 2406006