There seems to be a Venn diagram with reasonable overlap between folks that shoot film and folks with typewriters. Related, there is a smaller (but larger than I thought) Venn diagram of folks into film photography that are also into analog synthesizers, noting the other arm of our tiny business, BitByBit Synths. We have customers that have bought things from both our photography and synths stores. Neat!
Anyways, typewriters were not something I had put too much thought into until recently, though I am now part of that aforementioned diagram. There’s a few reasons why, thought they don’t directly relate to film. I suppose indirectly they do. Just like with film, I wanted something that let me slow down and be more deliberate and thoughtful. Something offline and real. So, a few weeks ago, I picked up an Olympia SM8 mechanical typewriter. Among the things I want to use it for, writing drafts of our blog posts is among them. Given that it’s raining right now, also a perk I can use this thing without needing electricity.
It has been an absolute joy to use. I don’t need another hobby, but I can see how folks get addicted to collecting these marvels of engineering. Many of us film folk already know this given the collection of large format lenses (and their shutters) and mechanical cameras like the Pentax K1000 – but when folks say “they don’t make things like they used to”, it’s true. Whether that is universally better is subjective, of course. A typewriter is much slower and deliberate as compared to when I’m whizzing away in a word processor on a modern computer. AI is now a thing where it can be used to generate entire documents making it nearly effortless.
Enter the typewriter. Effort-more is what I am after here – not effort-less. We are a family owned human run business and I want our blog to reflect that. I am not saying AI might not have a place, though that isn’t really up for debate here given what we do and the products we offer. Not to mention our customer service. It takes a human some effort to slog through my written nonsense. The least I can do is write that nonsense myself. And just like film, I think things which are important should take effort.
Tom Hanks certainly said it better in California Typewriter (and other places) but in any case, while the end product of the exercise will still be a blog post for our website, and while the average person reading this will not have a clue I drafted it on a mechanical contraption that dates back to the 60’s – I will know. And while I hope it does raise the quality of our posts, at the end of the day, it seems to be a heck of a lot more fun to write with the loud clackaty-clak of my new to me typewriter.
(No, I haven’t typed Tom Hanks a letter yet, but it’s coming – seems like you can’t truly own a mechanical typewriter until you do)
– Tim