The Notes app. A treasure trove of half thoughts and silly little ideas that will never make it off the page, I treasure notes, my personal archive, dearly. Struck by encounters on Twitter, namely Alex’s incredible use of lists, I took a look down my own haphazard files and stumbled upon a list I made months ago that makes me smile. Not because it is wholesome or particularly funny or anything, but only because one thing about me, I am a hater first! Here she is:
You may be asking, what is a contax? Incredible question! The contax is a model of film camera Japanese company Kyocera made from the 1970s-2002. The Contax T series was described as a compact camera with a titanium body and sexy Carl Zeiss lenses. All joking aside, it is a pretty excellent camera, and was never as cheap as other models. Still, through a combination of scarcity, the film photography ‘renaissance’ and mindless celebrity hype, the innocent Contax T2 has risen from about $50-$200 in the mid 2000s to retailing as high as $2000 now on eBay.
This brings me to my list. To be sure, not everyone on here uses the specific Contax T2, (although Kendall Jenner and Kaia Gerber certainly do, for which they will be dealt with). Rather, this is a list of celebrities who dabble in film photography, some better than others, but all whose influence has directly caused prices of what was once an afforadable hobby to be jacked up to infinity. Blame capitalism or ‘the culture’ or Euphoria for the film boom, all I know is these famous people’s stuff would find better use in MY HANDS.
Are all celebrities useless with a camera though?
No. If it comes down to it, Zendaya can keep hers, Paul Mescal can keep his, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen what Tessa Thompson or Frank Ocean have ever taken, but they are cool and thus are allowed to carry on.
The hater in me has words for three offenders though:
Brooklyn Beckham- incompetent!
Kaia Gerber. You can see more here, taken at the Met Gala 2022. I guess she was tasked by Vogue to use her new fangled Contax to document the evening’s guests. She did terribly! The camera literally auto focuses, called a ‘point-and-shoot’ because that is all you have to do! It is supposed to be so easy. And yet. To only take 17 (like half a roll) tells me either the rest were even worse, (unpublishable) or she completely forgot to do her ONE JOB! I want better for the girlies, someone help her, or better she gives that contax to me.
Kendall Jenner. I don’t even have the words. I attribute the original wound to her. The extortionate cost of buying and processing film can all be attributed to the time Kendall took a photo of that man on late night television.
That’s all from me, thank you for indulging with me in my hating era. I came across a tweet the other day that made me giggle- about how every man on GQ ten essentials will have a film camera, and I think this is a symptom of problem, but not its true cause. The real problem is we, as a film loving community, have not gatekept hard enough. Other cool things I love like kooky jewellery and Nike Cortez will likely be price gougednnext. Sad.!
I feel I can relate to your pain with how using wired headphones instead of AirPods became a thing??? Like my teenage and middle school years apparently became a trend LOL. I think owning/playing a DS in these current times is still pretty niche but I expect it to meet the same fate by 2024 if not this year
You are the voice of a generation