Film and the bobo ethos

Roger Hicks

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Does not the bobo in effect subsidize those of us who adopt a more pick-'n'-mix approach to life? I don't drink coffee (except Greek/Turkish, very occasionally) and I can't stand Starbucks, but my wife goes there faute de mieux because she likes the coffee. Big-screen TVs? I don't even have a small-screen TV. Yes, I love wood-burning stoves, and am considering having my kitchen chimney lined so I can use one I swapped with a friend: he had a kitchen range he wasn't using, and I had a small room-heating Godin (50 euros at a vide-greniers) which he now uses to heat his sejour. But this is not, I think, a bobo approach, though I'd be easy enough to caricature as one (the 35-year-old Land Rover, the centuries-old house, the Leicas, etc.)

It strikes me that 'bobo' is yet another of those labels with just enough truth to make them interesting for a while, like 'yuppie' or 'DINKY', and that who is classified as a bobo is very much influenced by who is doing the classifying.

So will film become a bobo aspiration? Quite possibly. The question is: how long for? In 10 years' time it will have been replaced by some other fashion, though it might just be a little bit more secure and mainstream as a result. My own belief -- or perhaps I should say, hope -- is that more people will indeed take a step or two back from rabid consumerism, and live more simply: a higher quality of life, rather than a higher material standard of living. I'm certainly seeing more and more of that, though of course, a small, attractive, cheap village in France is exactly where you'd expect to see such people. All we need is a label: apres-consumerism, perhaps.
 

Ed Sukach

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Overall, it sounds pretty good to me, with one major exception - The idea that it is so transient - sort of a disguise that one dons to be part of of a certain social group.
I am not sure, yet, whether or not it is socially acceptable to carry the title of "bobo". In reflection, I am reminded of us "Beatniks" - certainly a term that did not evoke an image of high status - AT THE TIME. Now, considering what has transpired since "those days", I would be more than proud to be considered in that "frame."

Would I spend the price of a diamond to buy a wood stove? Depends on the size (carat), cut, clarity, color, of the diamond - and the character of the stove. A "Pellet" stove" .... well, yes, within limits; after all, the price of my 'Blads" exceeded that of MANY diamonds I have seen.


I am glad that someone regards the participants of APUG as something other than barbarians. "Luddites", fine with me - "Us - NOT barbarians"; "Them - Unknown - with the distinct possibility that they may be."

Pottery Barn Lighting - I wonder if they make softboxes for those puppies? I suppose I *could* use the Dynalite heads with the modeling lamps... and wake up those involved in long, boring dicussions of "bobo" by occasionally firing the test button ... Hmmm.. wait!! I do not mean to infer that the discussion of the "bobo ethos" is boring here ... it is quite the opposite
- very interesting.

"When someone who is not a photographer ..." I'll add. "or is carrying one of those d*****l half cameras", asks...

I have already decided to do that ... RUN!!!
 
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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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JHannon said:
I had no idea what Bobo meant, so bobo = modern day yuppie?
Click to expand...

Sort of, but instead of snorting coke and living in the fast lane of their BMW, they go to socially conscious manifestation, eco-tourism, buy organic art from the Native tribes, and put terracotta back into fashion.

Bobo = BOurgeois BOhemian
 

jovo

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mhv said:
Bobo = BOurgeois BOhemian
Click to expand...


Which, btw, probably got going decades ago when, for example, denim work shirts started being worn with a tie in the 'white collar' workplace as well as upscale restaurants and other places of middle or upper class recreation etc. It's been a long standing habit by some, when possible, to co-opt the conservative 'establishment' in superficial ways and seems to me to have been going on since the end of the protest movement of the Vietnam era as a way to hold on to at least a whiff of the spirit of that age. I think it's hardly a new phenomenon.
 

David A. Goldfarb

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I agree that the Lomographic Society is fairly Bobo, with the caveat that anything that makes shooting film fashionable isn't a bad thing. It's not so much the fact of using a downscale camera like a Holga or Diana, but the way it's marketed or is manifested in culture.

The Lomographic Society literature seems to be all about the funkiness of using old ex-Soviet objects. It's like a campy American appropriation of "Oestalgie," or the German phenomenon of nostalgia for the material culture of East Germany.

When I was in Poland in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, Lubitels were plentiful and generally regarded as crap ("Lubitel"--Russian for "amateur," associated with a party effort to encourage amateur photography so that the masses could document the wonders and advances of Soviet life). Films like Foma and Svema were easy to obtain, but if it was important, you tried to buy Agfa or Kodak on the black market. Serious students might have access to a Kiev 88 or Pentacon 6, and pros who had foreign sources of income would shoot Hassy and Canon (there was Canon service in Warsaw).

I was doing a lot of street shooting then, and with my Pentacon 6, I could blend in with the crowd. My Canon F-1N, even with black tape over the logos, attracted a crowd, so I had a practical reason to use an East German camera. I sold it at a profit along with my Krasnogorsk 16mm camera when I got back to the US. I could have made an obscene profit, if I'd have known all that stuff would go Bobo.
 

SuzanneR

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And let's not forget the Sundance Catalog... a favorite, I'm sure of the Bobo set.

http://www.sundancecatalog.com/jump.jsp?itemID=0&itemType=HOME_PAGE

A quick "camera" search in there, and you'll find a $75.00 holga, and an almost $300 Seagull!! But as others have said... keeping film fashionable is alright with me. Although, I can't help but think that anyone dropping that kind of coin on those cameras are not going to be putting any film through them, but instead using them as a decorative paperweight... or something.

Ah well...
 

jd callow

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I would think that for photography to be bobo the camera would need to have pedigree or be somewhat esoteric like a tlr or rf opposed to an slr. The film would be rollie or east European long before kodak or fuji. Only the anglophiles (the ones driving Land rovers or Jags) would choose ilford.

I see the bobo pulling out his/her M(n) at an outdoor dinner party to shoot a few snaps with rollie cube and then discussing the merits of the 35 f/2 over the standard 50. In the study there may be a Weston or hand full of somewhat obscure, but not challenging work, along side a flower study or nature 'abstract' that the bobo shot. The fashion would die quickly as they won’t shoot colour, c41 b/w would lack authenticity and traditional b/w would be too big a pain to get processed and printed.

At some point the M(n),/Veriwide/ Rolliecord/ Rollie 35s would be affixed to a gitzo mini tripod and put on display on a shelf in the study


Lomo's and Holgas I think might remain the provenance of their children. Just as they had bought designer grunge in the late 80's their kids would acquire the gadgetry that signified inclusion whilst maintaining status. The toy cameras would have the style points, but might fall short on caché. I suspect that they'd crossprosses (or more likely use a Polaroid) as well as use b/w film (of any flavour). They too would grow tired of the affectation and return to their phone cameras as the inability to broadcast their work nullified all other positives.

Somewhere hiding in the closet will be a bobo or son/daughter of bobo who will find magic in photography and shortly thereafter we’ll see him/her here on apug lamenting the decline of film.
 

firecracker

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mhv said:
Sort of, but instead of snorting coke and living in the fast lane of their BMW, they go to socially conscious manifestation, eco-tourism, buy organic art from the Native tribes, and put terracotta back into fashion.

Bobo = BOurgeois BOhemian
Click to expand...

That's a good term. A lot of people I know are indeed the Bobos. And what kills me is that when they call/email me, they say something about the "quality" of their friends including me, I guess. I don't know if I ever use that word to describe people, but they do anyway. What's clear is that they just go after certain "tastes" in arts, music, and all other stuff that their friends have, and when they get to taste those tastes, they get a fair amout of pleasure. That's the end of the story and that's pretty shallow.

And when they contact me, I know what they are going to ask.

To respond to the original question, I don't really care about it because to some extent, I have ceased to pursue what other people pursue, and my use of film products as a choice is not about following and/or creating certain fashion or style. It's just part of me as a producer (of photographic images), not a consumer.

But if you ask me why I come to APUG and join the film Bobo gang, I don't know what to say...
 

firecracker

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I don't call them "barbarians" but perhaps "sophisticated art consumers."
 

bjorke

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mhv said:
It admires the strong, so profound authentic life of simple peasants in Tuscany, but only for the two weeks it spends there before returning to their Silicon Valley corporation.
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Just visit the cluster of Lexus SUV's around the Cupertino Whole Foods. It's enough to put you off your meusli.
 

Ed Sukach

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Hmmm ...

I've been thinking ... I Fly Fish ... arguably a "primitive" and very expensive - and just plain inefficient way - to pursue fish, where the traditional fly rod is still made of "cane" - Tonkin bamboo. Technically one has to wonder about the superiority of synthetics, graphite, boron ... Certainly the synthetics are more durable, easier to maintain, and quite possibly surpass cane in casting efficiency... while being avaible at 10% - 20% of the cost of a cane rod.

The same applies to Cross Country skiing ... Alpine skis easily cost far more than the Cross Country variety ... and Alpine skis are under the same enormous pressure to "keep up with technology" as are are so many other products in our lives. I am no expert in the longevity of Alpine skis, but my occasional contact with them in the "Last Year's" section of te ski shops indicates their value drops at about the same rate as a d******l camera.

In either case, and in cameras, money is NOT the major concern, it is something much more than that ... the "feel" of the involvement with the "tools". I cannot describe the "feel" of casting with a fine cane fly rod, or even removing it from its tube; I cannot explain the "feel" in cross country skiing; nor the "feel" when I pick up one of my cameras, or pop the top of the developing tank to find that, "I have images!!".

I don't know - does that fit the description of "bobo", or does there have to be something else - a detachment, or isolation from the media, resulting in something that strikes great fear in the hearts of some - actually DOING, instead of merely "talking about"?
 

Photo Engineer

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Ed, a stick of dynamite for fishing is faster, better and cheaper (until you pay the fines). So, it depends on what society will accept.

PE
 

Ed Sukach

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Photo Engineer said:
Ed, a stick of dynamite for fishing is faster, better and cheaper (until you pay the fines). So, it depends on what society will accept.
Click to expand...

I've thought about that before... right after I calculated that catching Brook Trout costs me US$987.13 per ounce, excluding "labor costs".

I've heard the old, "You don't have to be crazy to do these things, but it helps". Not true. Insanity *IS* a prerequisite for Fly Fishing, Cross Country skiing, and Photography. Necessary.


"My Dad was right" we NEVER become "smarter" - we only progress to different levels of stupidity".

And,

"Life is a parade of fools, and I am at the head of it, waving a baton".

I can't remember the authors of either quote.
 

pauliej

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Besides exotic photo equipment, does the Pottery Barn also market any pottery by chance? Just wondering...

The Barbarians are at the gate, but they have Visa, Discover and MasterCard, so it should be ok.

My view (and you're welcome to it) from behind the girder, section 529, Wrigley Field. Have a good game today, and a better one tomorrow.

PJ
 

gr82bart

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I've always maintained that going bobo - I never knew there was a term for it - is one of the ways film can survive the future. Stick a LV, DKNY, or even the prancing pony logo on a Hassey and there will be more sold that year then all the previous years combined.

Reminds me of the film manufacturing going boutique in order to survive thread.

One day there will be that film boutique where one can sip a double double non fat soy latte, discuss the merits of Ansel's work while browsing for your fav lith paper or leafing through a Chamalee coffee book while lounging on a leather loveseat a la Pottery Barn. Mark my words.

Regards, Art.
 

laverdure

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I'll say this for bobos: they improve food availability. They drive up rents, but then some of them buy photographs, too. I grew up in one of what we call the "circuit towns." People who live in one will likely end up visiting or living in many of them: Boulder, CO; Eugene, OR; Taos, NM; Berkeley, CA; Asheville, NC; Northampton, MA; etc. Big bobo towns. (That doesn't make me or my family bobos, by the way. We're more... pobos?) So I know from bobos.

They do like the "authenticity," "craft" and "sensuousness" of film. They "respect" people who use film. Do they/will they use it? Yes- so long as it's not too much work. That's the rub. As someone said, C-41 is not "authentic" enough for sustained interest. More to the point, actually, machine prints aren't good enough. What would be needed are friendly centrally located custom printing labs which would give you back a proof sheet and a red sharpie. You specify print-number, print-size, you specify RC or FB, you get prints. It needs to look easy. They're not ready for it yet, but I think they will be.

Actually, I think not only is the dominance of digital making film cool, but the fact that people are now used to taking huge numbers of pictures and printing only a few makes traditional b/w printing more understandable. I remember in high-school a friend of mine offered to develop and print a roll of true b/w for me (the first I'd ever bought- I don't think I realized it was any different from c-41) because he'd failed to shoot any for class that week. He brought me a proof sheet the next day and asked me which shots I wanted him to print, and I asked, "can't you print them all?"

So.
 
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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Awww, could you imagine how sweet that would be?

You could even have a semi-automated version. First you sell to people real B&W film that can handle automated processing without too much blown highlights (let's say Tri-X in XTOL). So when you go to the printing station, you drop your film, go have a latte, and 10 mins or so later you have your negative processed and dried.

Inside the machine you have an RH analyser that can guess your contrast adequately. Having an LCD monitor on the side with a positive scan might help with dodge/burn/contrast/crop. Once you've set the parameters, your neg is printed on paper, and spewn out of the machine (let's stick to RC for now). Plus you get a scan on CD because you want to email or flickr your masterpieces.

Add comfy chairs and glossy magazines, a real photo store section (so that the more adventurous can "graduate" or at least if they don't, maintain the illusion that they hang in "pro places), gallery, bookstore, gift shop, etc etc. It's like an internet café, where people who don't have commodity X at home can sit down and use it.

I'd have no problem with that, and could live with the slight air of popular snobbery these places would maintain (can't be worse than some photo shops I know...).

What would really pain me is rather what is most likely to happen: the Baudrillard-inspired nightmare of simulacre, the inkjet shop that cashes on a "classic" look, the fake sprocket holes or filed negative carriers artefacts, just like that Pottery Barn camera prop does. It's film without film; style without substance.

But I really dig the friendly FB printing lab. Getting a custom print probably can't be that cheap anyway, but the atmosphere of pro labs is just too much for the average customer to handle.
 

Ole

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Not true everywhere, Ed. Certainly not around here.
 

laverdure

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Come to think of it maybe we're talking about different people.
 

laverdure

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MHV- I think the people I'm talking about are a little more informed than the people you're talking about. The people I'm talking about actually do buy organic/fair trade because they want to make a difference, and then drive home to their $750,000 straw-bale passive-solar houses in their hybrid Lexus SUVs. And their houses are full of art-objects, many made by anonymous old men of color from places you've never heard of, but sometimes they'll have old-school, non-ethnic stuff as well. A lot of them take art classes, and yoga classes, and if they had the time they would actually cook decent food on their $30,000 Viking eight-burner gas ranges. This of course only describes the richer ones, and it's a stereotype to boot, but the point is they have a little more discernment than you give them credit for. They dig fake sprockets around pictures in magazines, but would find it tacky for someone to "stitch" them onto their family snaps. They have some taste, it's just that they have more money than sense. It's just that they haven't yet found their way out of the consumption-identity trap, unlike us noble intellectuals. (après consumeristas, oui.)

Film is definitely getting fashionable. You might not know it here at APUG, but that's because it's not fashionable to be a film-nerd so they don't come here. Almost everyone I know under the age of 30 who takes photography at all seriously use film at least some of the time, even if they can't give a good reason why.

Will it jump from a fashionable hobby to an upper middle class fad? Not impossible. I've got a pet theory that the more pervasive digital-everything becomes the more we're going to see a rekindling of interest in things that actually exist. Certainly, the more homogeneous the world has become the more people have shown an interest in cultural tourism, identity politics, regional cooking, and wars of independence, holy and secular...

Of course the things which do get preserved this way tend to get preserved cast in wax- we have excellent regional cook-books but more and more cooks from those regions have quit cooking, and the only people who can cook now like their grandmothers used to are a couple foodies in NY and California...
 
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laverdure

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MHV (again)- just reread some of your older posts in this thread and it seems we are talking about the same people. Sorry for the repetition. Your last post seemed like a non sequitur to me in the context of bobos is all.
 
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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Laverdure, I think the bobos are a rather fluid category, but I think we basically agree on the fine line of style and consumerism they are treading.
 
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