Everything new is better, yet also somehow worse.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been known in my circles as the "tech guy". Even back before tech was what it is today, back when MKBHD was a college student with less than 50k subscribers. I was that kid that had the phone that made people go "What's an Android? What do you mean your phone runs froyo?". Looking back, I can't remember what it is about technology that got me so into it. Maybe it was because I was lucky, I got my first phone in the first grade, a Nokia 3310. Or maybe it was because I grew up with a best friend who was just as much of a nerd as I was, who got his 3315 around the same time. Whatever the reason, it's always interesting to look back at my arc over the years, and how I went from being that guy, to slowly finding ways to eliminate technology from my life. Maybe it's burnout. Maybe it's just what happens when the thing you loved becomes everything, everywhere, all at once. Whatever it is, I've started moving backwards.

I don't think there's a specific point in time I can look back on and say "yeah, that's where I stopped being so invested in technology", rather, I can think of a few factors that started nudging me in that direction.

In late 2017, I started getting into the idea of minimalism. As with most things in my life, a short 13 minute youtube video was enough to send me into a deep research hole that ended up shaping parts of my personality. This time, Matt D'Avela was the culprit. I had just moved back home from 3 years abroad, back into my old high school room that was cluttered with all sorts of stuff, from guitars and relics of other past hobbies, to random posters and gaming consoles. It took less than a month for me to sell, donate or throw out almost everything I had in that room. Out were the brightly colored tshirts with quotes like "single and disease free" plastered over them, in were the black, gray and white tshirts. I dwindled down everything to just what I needed. One water bottle, one laptop without needless peripherals like monitors and keyboards, everything.

Probably the biggest thing I parted with at the time was my camera - the Canon EOS 600D. That Canon was a huge part of my life at that time. From my first photograph uploaded to Flickr in 2011 to the last youtube video I published, that thing went everywhere with me. When I earned my second paycheck ever in 2013 (first one always goes to the parents), the first thing I bought was a new lens for that camera.

So if I loved it so much, why did I sell it? Well at the time, life was different, I was different. It was a pain to take care of. It was big, bulky, needed an external charger for its batteries, I carried around two big ass lenses with it, I always looked like a tourist with that thing around my neck. To add to that, technology was moving at such a rapid pace that the photos I got out of my iPhone 7 were "technically better". The advancements in computational and HDR photography on the phone, paired with the minimalist-driven concept of "the best camera is the one you have with you", I fully dove into the idea that my phone was the only camera I needed. A concept that actually has served me fine till today in 2026, when it's finally given me some pause.

I've taken a lot of trips since I sold that camera - Madrid, Tokyo, Porto, Osaka, the list goes on. Looking back at photos from those trips, all shot on modern phones like the Oneplus 6 and iPhone 13 mini, you could argue they're "better" than anything that came out of my Canon. Better exposed, sharper, more details in the shadows and highlights. But the same qualities that make them technically superior also make them colder, more clinical. But, here's what I've realized. Having less photos makes each one matter more, and unfortunately the ones I do have, they feel like digital screenshots - clinically accurate captures of a moment, somehow missing the moment itself.

A couple of weeks ago I was going through an old family photo album, something I haven't done in a while, and I noticed something interesting. These photos were not perfect. They were grainy, under exposed, over exposed and the color reproduction was beyond inaccurate. Yet somehow, they felt.. real. Like a placeholder, a snapshot in time. Raw, candid and emotional. That got me thinking about and looking into film. Let me preface this by saying yes, I know that film photography in 2026 is a growing cliche and more of a trend than in years past, and the irony is not lost on me that I am talking about moving away from the herd by jumping on a trend. In my defense, albeit a poor and baseless defense, I didn't know it was a trend till I started looking into it.

Anyway, before the past couple of weeks, I never really knew much about film photography. Me being the "tech guy" I wrote about earlier, I always saw it in the same light as VHS - old, antiquated and inferior to it's replacement in every way. However, the more I do my research, the more enamored I am with the idea of it. 36 shots per roll, that's all you get (unless you go half frame). No batteries, no chargers, no cables and wires. The biggest selling point? No being taken out of the moment. Once you take the shot, that's it, you move on. You're not standing there looking at the results thinking "wait does it look good, should I get a different angle? should I take a few more just in case?". Did you get the right shot? You'll find out in a couple of weeks once you've sent the roll for processing. Intentional, patient, present.

As I write this, film sounds like it's perfect for me. Yes it's going to lead to more "bad shots" especially when you don't know how to expose your shots and all that, and unfortunately yes, it is getting increasingly expensive to shoot film these days, but hey, just like watches and old cars, maybe it's okay to spend more on something that doesn't make sense if it makes you happy.

Maybe it's also about saturation. We've all lived through screens since March 2020. Hell, I've been working remotely since then, always connected, always online and plugged into the digital undercurrent of the world. Now there's AI in everything - every tool, every workflow, every app getting 'enhanced.' Maybe after spending all day talking about machine learning models and optimization, I just want to touch something that doesn't think. That could also be part of why I dropped all my pebbles and connected devices for mechanical timekeeping from the likes of Nomos and Seiko.

I still think some things are better new. Give me music streaming over an iPod or vinyl any day, and I'm sorry bibliophiles, I know you love the smell of old dead trees but I'll stick to having all my books in the palm of my hand, thanks.

So what is it? Nostalgia for a time when things were simpler? The concept of minimalism reaching into deeper parts of my psyche? Or maybe just burnout from a tech guy who got too deep into tech? I don't know. What I do know is that I have a Canon QL17 III that should be reaching me anytime soon. The guy from 2017 who sold his DSLR for a phone camera would be confused. But the version of me that exists now - the one who's spent over a decade building digital products, who lived through a pandemic on screens, who watched AI get added to everything, he gets it. Sometimes you need to move backwards to remember what actually matters.