Keita Suzuki leads a group of young analogue photography fans around Kamakura, a coastal city near Tokyo, stopping to snap pastel-coloured hydrangeas with bulky vintage film cameras. The participants later share their retro-looking photos online, in a trend a top Japanese camera brand is tapping into with its first new film model in more than two decades. Instead of pressing a smartphone button, more young people “want to experience the original act of taking a photograph: winding the film up, looking through the viewfinder and releasing the shutter”, Suzuki says.
One of the beautiful aspects of film photography is that, with limited physical film, one must think carefully about which memories to “lock in” to each photograph, he adds. Suzuki, who advertises his tours on social media, has seen growing interest from teens and people in their twenties eager to load 35mm film into a camera and take it to be developed for the first time. Yuriko Yamada was one of around 20 participants on a recent photography tour.
“Digital photos are clear and clean, but film ones have faint, soft colours, which I prefer,” the 34-year-old says. “It takes time to see the final product, but I really enjoy the process. It feels nostalgic,” she adds.
Japan’s biggest camera brands stopped making analogue models in the 2000s as digital ones began to dominate the market. Countless camera sellers in Japan’s big cities have since stepped up to fill the void, refurbishing old models for .