When is it quixotic nostalgia?

The article The Age of Average by Alex Murrell writes,

“[…] while yet another places subjects in front of faux scenic backdrops reminiscent of a low-budget Sears photo studio. Each of these distinct setups is utilized broadly and across industries, with the same composition and concept seen on the Instagram feeds of a major beverage syndicate and an indie skincare brand alike.””

Oh, man, I am of a generation that got its pictures taken at Sears. Those were the family photos for years. We had one shot at a picture. It was what it was. They developed them, you paid for them, and you were happy with it.

Of course it’s nice to have more choice, to have instant feedback, but there is definitely something lost in modesty, in simply living with what the universe had to offer, in learning to love the picture that was so bad it’s good, in appreciating the unforeseen and unforeseeable twists offered up by a universe with a bit of a perverse sense of humor, of being forced to learn the lesson that not everything is that important, that you can’t expect perfection everywhere, and that, no matter how much money you had, we were all in the same boat, taking group portraits with our fingers crossed.

It was a time of modesty and simplicity that kept us humble. We should think whether that might not be a better balance of time spent to imbue a moment with value. Or perhaps those are just nostalgic goggles that those who came before us wore, who had to sit for painted portraits, and thought our ability to pick up pictures the next day was remarkably snooty and utterly too modern. There was no salient difference in choice, though, between a painted portrait and a photograph whose output you could not immediately see. You took the photo and you lived with the results. If you thought you’d closed your eyes, you could ask for another one, but your ability to tweak was incredibly limited. Relative to today’s ability to see the result immediately and to apply filters in real time, a Sears photo and a portrait were very much in the same category.