Last year's model. Cameras as a fashion statement.

Fashion is predicated, to a certain extent, on making aesthetic gestures and flourishes different from season to season and from year to year. As in most industries there are influencers in fashion who drive the dialog about who will wear what in the upcoming months. The clothes that are custom made and worn by super models on the catwalks of Paris, Milan and NYC are the referents for high productions of the same basic styles in the mass retail markets, but at a lesser price, made lower by the magic of mass production. Some fashion, conservative and aimed at the highest demographics, stands the test of time and becomes iconic, almost immune to going "out of fashion." The Chanel inspired "little black dress" or the classic Armani blazer. Oxford dress shoes (not Brogues --- according to a reference from the movie, "The Kingsman.") and the meme-worthy black turtleneck shirts, a la Steve Jobs. 

A lot of over the top fashion is meant to shock or amaze. Most fashion trends are tired and over with in a short stretch of time. The influencers move on the next rhinestone studded frock or Nehru collared blouse, only this year they are available in different colors and with subtle changes to shapes and fabrics. They also switch from Summer to Winter and all the seasons in between.

All of the above refers to wearable fashion. Especially in the realm of ready to wear. 

Funny. I feel as though this is the year we embraced annually depreciable fashion in camera buying, fully and without acknowledging a sense of irony and excess. 

For a while, during the arc of improvement in digital camera technology we had reasons and rationales for rapid but fake obsolescence we felt in the camera market. Improvements in sensor tech and image processing tech kept giving us less noise, more dynamic range, faster AF and more resolution. Given a facile and quick ability to switch from camera to camera one could, at least theoretically, continue to mine the improvements in successive generations. Not "upgrading" seemed a false economy.

But in the last five or even seven years, if you were looking for excellent image quality and ease of use, all the top level cameras had already made the grade and were delivering the goods. Everything afterwards were just tiny, incremental improvements. Not observably better than what you already had nestled in the folds of that Billingham bag. 

But the influencers have now turned to camera fashion. How do I know? I gauge it by how many "influencers" on YouTube have, this year or the end of last year, flocked to cameras like the Leica Q2 and have elevated them to almost mythical, "must have" status. Even though the Q2 was already long in the tooth, not nearly as well spec'd as many cheaper alternatives and even deprived of the usual "helpful" features like in camera charging, input and output ports, phase detect AF ( which amateurs use to measure the times before and after camera evolutions into the "acceptable" category). 

Now cameras like the Leica Q2 are getting more attention in the influencer space than top Sony, Nikon and Canon professional cameras. Gen Z has become fascinated with Leica M series film cameras. The Ricoh GR111 and GR111X are now getting massive attention by everyone who couldn't find a Fuji X100V which is also an influencer driven camera.  Perhaps the ultimate influencer driven camera. Cameras as fashion. Cameras as a statement. Millions of the same camera sold to help you express your own individuality. Frankly, even though I am often eager to follow along, in retrospect it's just downright embarrassing. 

And it's not just cameras. Consider the move from the good, old fashioned camera strap that came packaged for free with your new camera. The strap demanded an upgrade to the Domke strap or the Tamrac strap (my favorite) and the rationale was being able to instantly unhook the camera from the bulk of the strap and use the camera freehand. This was quickly followed by an excruciatingly unfashionable evolution to the Black Rapid straps; mostly worn bandolier style and oh so ugly. The platform shoe of camera straps. Or perhaps the combat boot of straps. These have been replaced in short order by the Peak Design Straps which, as far as I can see, boast only that you can quickly detach or reattach your camera equally quickly via the red disk anchors, complete with delicate "strings." Each permutation or strap fashion change costing more and more. Now? Oh, the fashion forward photographer has eschewed all manner of shoulder or body strap and now embraces the "hand" strap. Just enough fabric and poly-something to hook your camera to one wrist. Unless you hanker after a newly re-traditional neck strap from Arti Di Mano at a cool $228 (Arte di Mano Reinforced Comodo Neck Strap - Minerva Black with Black Stitching). And then we've gone full circle. $228 for a camera strap when you can get one for free in the box? And I complained about expensive batteries --- what was I thinking?

Ten years ago all the buzz was around speed lights. Now an influencer would not be caught dead shooting with one. LED lights had their ascendency until the new sensors with noise free performance in cameras came along, which doomed using any lighting at all. So much talent now unleashed. 

But back to cameras....

Seems to me that the old Leica M series film rangefinders have become the "little black dress" of the fashion world while everything else is a nod to ever-changing fashion. Everything else is more Thierry Mugler and Versace and much more topical. And Leica has assumed an immediacy in the minds of so many YouTube photo enthusiasts....

I was struck by watching three videos by photo fashion plate, Peter McKinnon. In short order he embraced a Leica Q2 which then gave way to a Leica SL2-S which was trumped by a Leica film camera which he is just now learning to operate  (poorly). But he has expressed that he's now driven to explore film cameras because ----- "digital has no soul." This from an influencer whose sole experience over the course of his always on camera career has been with digital cameras. 

Then I watched YouTube influencer, Evan Raft, bumble through a Leica SL2 to a Leica Q2 transition and basically give up in despair before going back and trying Leica yet again. Apparently the lure of the click throughs was too great to deny.  No question that either Peter and/or Evan can make good photographs and may even make money directly from their photographs, but my bet is that the bulk of their incomes are from performances as camera reviewers and lifestyle influencers. Expert at driving legions of people to buy stuff and then, subsequently, reject it all the instant a new product comes into fashion. 

Ever practical James Popsys evolved on his channel from Panasonic M4:3 cameras to full frame Panasonic cameras to Sony cameras (which he suggested were the just right) until --- Lo and behold! He showed up on his channel one day fondling his latest purchase --- a Leica M digital camera and 50mm lens. Today's video compares the performance differences between the Leica rangefinder and his Sony A7xx camera. He can see no differences.... Tune in to see what's next. 

Likewise, Thomas Heaton, whose videos are long on cameras and vans and objects like tripods and propane RV stoves while wandering around endlessly in various UK landscapes getting cold and wet and muttering about not being able to find the "good light." Which is, I guess, okay with everyone who subscribes to his channel. And, admittedly, looking at someone's landscape work over and over again would get awfully boring. But he does a good job at showing his audience just how miserable it can be to go outside and chase after the perfect landscape in an area beset by frost and rain and....flat light.

I bring this all up because, absent a personal profit motive there are really, very, very few reasons to "upgrade" through various cameras now other than to stay abreast of the latest fashion trends. 

A few years back I had lunch with Elliott Erwitt when he was here in town. (Big and obvious name dropping...)  He was carrying a Leica M7 and a 50mm Summicron. Shooting film. Mostly Tri-X. But he never mentioned his camera. It was just there; hanging off his shoulder. He gave no reviews. He didn't sing its praises. He shot it sparingly, as the opportunities arose but his conversation revolved around life, food, art and travel experiences. The camera was, to him, as comfortable as a favorite sweater or a well broken in pair of shoes. Nothing you needed to talk about. Nothing you needed to rush out and buy. Easy for him to say...

Of course Erwitt wasn't making his money hawking cameras and being camera stylish. He was earning money the old fashioned photographer way: He was selling prints of his images to an audience that loved,....the images. Not the camera. Prints made by cameras so primitive that most current generation photographers would be baffled by their operation. Which speaks volumes in itself. (Where is the USB plug on a Leica M3??? Why can't I find the light meter switch? Why does the bottom come off? What? No wireless charging?).

It's funny to me that, as I wind down client driven work the desire to buy cameras for client's sake, which was my my rationale for camera churning, has also wound down. I had coffee with a very wise and dear friend this morning. I mentioned that without the profit motive the act of buying new cameras had become less and less fun. Less rewarding. And without an active audience of fellow photographers to oooh and ahh over a new purchase the buying buzz became so much less buzzy.

He responded that without a good, solid rationale behind the purchase of new gear the purchase itself was bereft of justifiable value. And by extension, much pleasure. 

It's been a while since I bought a new camera. Nothing seems to tickle my acquisitive bones. Nothing has persuaded me to click, "purchase." 

Kind of nice. Less gear to worry about. But I'll quickly lose my photo-fashion credentials without the requisite and showy purchases of new gear --- if I had any credentials to begin with. 

Turn up those collars, grab a pair of Guccis and make sure you have a matching camera to complete the outfit. Yikes ----- photography has now extended its reach into yearly fashion turnover. What next?

Oh...and just so you know....new tripod purchases are so.....last year. As are gimbals. And please....try not to show up with a long zoom. So gauche. 

So, if Leica rangefinders are the perennial "little black Chanel dresses". What are the rest of the cameras? 

I guess Sony would be the Abercrombie and Fitch selection. Nikon for Eddie Bauer and Canon as the Gap plus Old Navy of cameras. Fuji seems very comfortable as Lulu Lemon while Pentax brings up the rear as Burberry's; the classic belted trench coat of cameras...  Olympus has become a Costco store brand of stretch waist Cargo shorts while Panasonic is toiling away trying to become the Carhartt's of photography. An exception for their MF cameras, those are aspiring Tactical 5.11 wannabes.

Sorry, just got so tired of the car analogies....

Revised: Leica, the Hermes of cameras.... That's all I've got.