Why is that?
When the sun emerges and the winter clouds part, something inside me awakens, urging me to soak in as much of its warmth as I can. Yet, on a Monday like today, I’m tethered indoors, tending to client requests. It’s a tension I’ve often pondered—how life can feel so full of contradictions. I’m a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast, but I find myself drawn more to older technologies than the latest innovations. The outdoors soothe me, grounding me in the world around me, yet I love sinking into the comfort of video games indoors. My phone, which I rely on daily for countless tasks, is the piece of tech I resent most.
Why is that?
Recently, I picked up a Sony Handycam from 1998—the TRV-99, one of the last Hi8 cameras Sony made before going fully digital. The reasoning behind it is as paradoxical as the rest of my quirks: I crave a deeper connection with my technology. I miss the era when devices had a singular purpose—a DSLR for photos, a camcorder for video. Using this vintage camera, I’ve found myself recording more long-form videos of my family, which was the whole point of this experiment. Looking back at footage from my own childhood, I’ve realized that 90s tech captures a certain nostalgic haze. Our memories of the past aren’t razor-sharp; they’re soft, unfocused, a little blurry around the edges. The old Handycam delivers exactly that—a wistful window into yesterday. I want my kids to have that same gift when they’re older, not just the crisp, clinical precision of phone footage. They’ll have plenty of that already. What I’m after is the kind of sprawling, unpolished recordings that defined the 90s and early 2000s—a truer snapshot of life as it was, not the curated highlight reels we craft for social media today. Have you ever noticed that when shooting video on your phone that it’s usually no more than 45 seconds long?
Why is that?
_brandon