After a decade dominated by increasingly powerful cell phone cameras, sophisticated filters and editing tools that turned the search for the perfect image into almost a rule, photography has started flirting again with what used to seem like a flaw. Direct flash, grain, shaky shots, improvised framing and the look of old compact digital cameras have reappeared at parties, photo shoots and social media content.
The aesthetic especially recalls the 2000s, when photographing often meant pointing the camera and recording the moment without much concern for light, composition or retouching. The difference from that era is that today, this unpretentious look can be carefully constructed. What appears to be a casual click is, in many cases, a deliberate aesthetic choice.
The phenomenon involves both party and photoshoot photography as well as content published on social media. The trend represents a shift from the search for total control over the image that predominated in recent years, when filters and complex edits became increasingly common.
Photographer Fábio Bahiense is mentioned in the article as a source to comment on this return of visual elements that evoke the pre-digital era.
