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When I was in art school I studied photo and found it really frustrating that the most successful photographers had all chosen a camera for themselves that they worked with almost all the time: for Ryan McGinley & Terry Richardson it was the Yashika T4, for Juergen Teller it was the Contax G2, Wolfgang Tillmans used a Leica with a 35mm lens. Something about this felt disingenuous and try as I might I could never find my version of that thing. It hasn’t been since I abandoned and rediscovered photography that I found that my first point-and-shoot digital camera - the 2005 Canon Powershot G7 - is mine. I adore this freaking thing and shoot all my portraits with it. You can get them usually for $50 on eBay, the flash is powerful, and it has a fantastic zoom. There’s also a really nice video feature that can handle low light and somehow translates colors in a way that feels “straight from the tube” - I’ve already shot a short film on it and want to make more videos with it soon.
Dec 21, 2021
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📸I’ve dabbled in photography for about 15 years and I’ve tried all kinds of film and digital cameras - as of late I have settled on these two.
The Canon is a surprisingly heavy duty point and shoot digi-cam. So far it’s the best balance of photo quality / features I could find in an early 2000s model. The batteries are rechargeable and still available to buy new, the flash recharges really fast and it has a full manual mode if you want to get more involved with settings etc. Only downside is these shoot compact flash which you will probably need to buy a dongle for. I’m sure you can find a model that shoots SD though!
The Nikon EM is about as basic as you can get with a manual focus SLR. The camera shoots aperture priority auto - meaning you can’t control the shutter speed, however there is a really easy to use built in light meter that beeps if you are at the risk of under or over exposing the image; this makes it really easy to consistently take good photos. Great starter film camera if that’s the route your going down.
With all this being said - the best camera is always whatever you can get your hands on! I have shot great photos on shit cameras and shit photos on great cameras. Ya never know what is going to work for you until you try it. Have fun.
The Canon is a surprisingly heavy duty point and shoot digi-cam. So far it’s the best balance of photo quality / features I could find in an early 2000s model. The batteries are rechargeable and still available to buy new, the flash recharges really fast and it has a full manual mode if you want to get more involved with settings etc. Only downside is these shoot compact flash which you will probably need to buy a dongle for. I’m sure you can find a model that shoots SD though!
The Nikon EM is about as basic as you can get with a manual focus SLR. The camera shoots aperture priority auto - meaning you can’t control the shutter speed, however there is a really easy to use built in light meter that beeps if you are at the risk of under or over exposing the image; this makes it really easy to consistently take good photos. Great starter film camera if that’s the route your going down.
With all this being said - the best camera is always whatever you can get your hands on! I have shot great photos on shit cameras and shit photos on great cameras. Ya never know what is going to work for you until you try it. Have fun.
Jan 8, 2025
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📸A great digital camera from the turn of the century. I love shooting film but it's so expensive, so I bought a Powershot for like $100 on eBay. You might have one in your childhood bedroom or your parent's computer desk.
Apr 18, 2024
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📷I’ve had the best luck with a couple different models of the canon powershot digital cameras! I think they’re great quality and they give that nostalgic look to photos that remind me of when I was a kid. Some have rechargeable batteries and some take double a batteries, you can definitely find one on eBay, depending on the model it might be more expensive than others. I bought myself an sd card reader that I can plug into my phone whenever I do want to upload my photos for printing or posting.
Jan 15, 2025
Top Recs from @asher-penn
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🤡RIP to this absolute GOAT of a sobriety meme account. I think I stopped drinking around the time that sobriety memes were in their second wave - 12-step inside jokes that were ideally harrowing, embarrassing, and hopeful in their shared hopelessness - and while Brutal Recovery, Fucking Sober, and Dumbsoberbitch are great, no account could perform these lacerations with the expertise of a surgeon as @facebooksober. Like an elephant balancing itself on a dime, facebook sober managed to capture the divine paradox’s inherent to recovery with such aesthetic grace and poetry I was 100% convinced that the person behind the account was a hot girl (it was a dude, lol). Whatever. Hot Newcomers Are Forever.
Dec 21, 2021
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🌚On a recent trip to Paris a friend invited me to an after-party at a place called Silencio aka “David Lynch’s Nightclub.” I got there early, and descending the 6 flights of black carpeted stairs that’s only signage read “no phone use or photographs” became increasingly aware I was entering something special - the carpeting continued into what felt like a sound-proofed underground bunker where every detail - the lighting to the furniture, to the bar, the bathrooms mirrors - was considered which such deep precision that I felt transported into Lynch’s vision in a way that none of his films, writing or music ever has. I stood at the bar drinking an uncannily delicious coca-cola from the bottle in dumbfounded awe. This was not a movie set... it was the real thing. I later read that Lynch’s goal was to ​​"induce and sustain a specific state of alertness and openness to the unknown.” Mission accomplished. I can say with conviction that no interior space that was designed with intention has ever made me *feel* the way Silencio does.
Dec 21, 2021
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🍌They say that the best design is no design, and I can’t think of a better example than No Frills, a low-cost supermarket chain in Canada that since the late ’70s has been easily recognized for its iconic simple in-house branding. Operating on the premise that making graphic design decisions is a major unnecessary expense No Frills follows a strict style guide of Pantone Yellow C combined with large bold Helvetica Neue 75 for all its interiors and packaging: pickles, dark chocolate, hummus, evaporated milk, olive oil all get the same point-blank treatment. The closest I’ve ever seen to this aesthetic is on that TV show Lost where all the food comes from The Dharma Initiative. Walking down their aisles can feel dystopian and autistic but also timelessly chic - a ridiculous marketing concept leaned into with a commitment that I hope they never abandon.
Dec 21, 2021