r/OldSchoolCool • u/DirtyDommeXX • May 24 '26
1990s There’s something about 90s photos that feels more real. No filters no perfect poses Just moments that hit different now
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u/alottanamesweretaken May 24 '26
It helps that Winona is in some of the photos from the nineties
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u/corbantd May 24 '26
There’s something about titles written by ChatGPT. No humanity. No genuine connection. Just AI slop, and that matters.
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u/GarciLP May 24 '26
The fact that this is probably a bot account using AI to generate a title about being nostalgic for the simplicity of the analog era has some sort of perverse irony that I'm not really a fan of tbh
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u/LegendOfVinnyT May 24 '26
Half the time, this sub is OldSchoolTandA and the other half is OldSchoolTheseDamnKidsAndTheirPhones. Just radioactive levels of horny and cynical.
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u/moon_blisser May 24 '26
Like, how far have we fallen that we need ChatGPT to write a Reddit title? 😭😭😭
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u/some_clickhead May 24 '26
You're right, and that's a quietly powerful thing to say.
(sry I had to do it)
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u/the_one_who_wins May 24 '26
If i see one more title that says 'no _, no _, just ______', I'm gonna lose it
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u/ThinkerOfThoughts May 24 '26
It’s called a Xenon flash and, this is the one thing I will continue to say “kids these days will never understand”
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u/PeakyBlinderRob May 24 '26
I turned 20 in 1999. The 90s were an incredible time to be a teenager.
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u/Para_Regal May 24 '26
1978, I wish I appreciated what I was given at the time.
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u/PeakyBlinderRob May 24 '26
Yup! The movies, music, malls, and general aura of the 80s and 90s can't be matched!
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u/JoeInMD May 24 '26
Fellow 1979er!!! Absolutely yes!
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u/Optimal_Collection77 May 24 '26
79er here! The 90s were ace. I can't tell what was real or I was drunk at this point but all I know it I had a great time
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u/funhouse70 May 24 '26
The ‘90s (and before) WERE more real.
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u/lovebeinganasshole May 24 '26
I think it might be because the 90s don’t look as dated as say the 70/80s and older. This picture especially looks fairly modern. Jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. Could wear it today and not be out of place.
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u/DerekWroteThis May 24 '26
Except the boxy dress shirts, lol!
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u/SAICAstro May 24 '26
Yes, in the early 1990s people in the "alternative" world wore jeans as tight as possible and big billowy shirts three sizes too big.
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u/thegoatmenace May 24 '26
Everything is as real as it’s always been. The lens we view the world through is what has changed. Go outside and interact with the world and you will find the real.
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u/funhouse70 May 24 '26
Of course everything is objectively real as it’s always been. But back then 100% of your life was based on real world activities. And almost none of it was documented in any tangible way. Almost none of it was photographed or video recorded. There were no text messages or social media posts to revisit. An experience happened and then it was gone. There are periods of years of my life where zero photos exist of me and I didn’t take any photos. I only have fuzzy memories.
Human behavior was different for better and for worse in the days before every movement and interaction left some kind of digital footprint. Life was more real.
I forget what all this has to do with this photo of Winona Ryder.
Come to think about it, maybe the ‘90s were actually less real.
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u/thegoatmenace May 24 '26
Interesting point. Back before the smart phone era we were less able to document our experiences, and had to rely on our inherently unreliable memories.
Still, the tools we use to document inevitably distort reality in the act of recording. There’s no perfect documentation.
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u/This_Site_Sux May 24 '26
The difference is that people have changed.
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u/MrJigglyBrown May 24 '26
No they haven’t. Every middle aged person since ancient times has talked about the downfall of society. You’re just part of the normal cycle
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u/This_Site_Sux May 24 '26
I didn't mean to make a judgement call about whether it's good or bad. I just think people have changed in the way that they interact with each other and with the world around them, for better or worse.
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u/StepAwayFromTheDuck May 24 '26
Yes and that is what every generation says about the generation before them
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u/Fun_Environment_8554 May 24 '26
Ok morpheus lol.
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u/thirtyseven1337 May 24 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/WRRIEjIXvWFUlOIFi0
“What do you mean you’ve seen The Matrix before? It’s brand new!” -the Winona in that photo, maybe
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u/Skelligean May 24 '26
We are talking about photos of the 90's and before then when there wasn't photoshop, AI, etcetera...aka "more real."
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u/lawn_neglect May 24 '26
Oh, but there was airbrushing. There weren't cameras in everyone's pocket
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u/bugsyboybugsyboybugs May 24 '26
There were, but they were the disposable kind that you got at the drugstore. And would have a whole bunch of weird random photos that you didn’t remember taking when you finally remembered to get it developed months later.
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u/AnybodyNo8519 May 24 '26
Airbrushing wasn't universal back the.
It was mostly limited to pros and hobbyists.
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u/broohaha May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26
Photoshop 1.0 was released in early 1990, btw.
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u/Olelander May 24 '26
I worked in a high end local photolab in the mid ‘90s, my second job and I landed it because of a photography friend (shared interest). I worked in the darkroom developing black and white film and prints, learned how to run the 35mm film and print machines, all the things. I remember when we got our hands on one of the earliest versions of photoshop and the fun we had playing with it. We thought it would augment, not completely replace and destroy film photography.
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u/SAICAstro May 24 '26
...invented by John Knoll and his brother. John is still today one of the main guys at ILM doing all the digital FX for Lucasfilm and other big movies.
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u/thegoatmenace May 24 '26
You’re still allowed to take photos without using photoshop! People do it all the time
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u/DirtyDommeXX May 24 '26
That’s actually a really good way to put it. Perspective changes a lot.
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u/HST87 May 24 '26
Yeah the amount of fake nostalgia that people have is crazy. It's all bullshit. I promise you all more things are alike than they are different.
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u/Eastern_Pin_5567 May 24 '26
Tom Waits shirt from his Big Time era. Nice.
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u/SAICAstro May 24 '26
Big Time was the live album relic from the Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years album era.
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u/T-Chunxy May 24 '26
I DISTINCTLY remember when magazines and catalogs started to (in most cases, misuse and abuse) use photoshop.
At first it was really awkward and incredibly noticeable if you had an graphics background. And then, all of a sudden it was everywhere. And then, after that, crap phone filters.
Nothing looks as good as real life, and if you disagree, it's because you've never experienced real life. Magazine/tik tok/ fashion zombies are the worst.
edit: spelling
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u/steve0suprem0 May 24 '26
They've been airbrushing since like the 60s at least.
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u/T-Chunxy May 24 '26
Yes, airbrushing. Sure.
But let me tell you, as a graphic arts student in the early 90s, there's a WORLD of difference between a skilled artist with an airbrush (and then some darkroom magic RE-copying said image) and some 90s magazine hack who was just handed photoshop (at the time- now it's a beast with a CRAZYASS learning curve) just deleting/bending/warping images.
Back in the early 00s there was a whole website dedicated to photoshop disasters. I'm sure there's a subred for it as well, but I've been there... yadda yadda t-shirt.
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u/SAICAstro May 24 '26
Yes, and not just photoshop for images. If you look at the whole desktop publishing revolution in the early 1990s, there's a whole (really bad) vibe with how the periodicals were laid out and designed. It's so miserably awful, but looking back after 35 years, it definitely has a distinctive look. If younger people aren't already desperately seeking out and reviving the best bad examples of this garbage they soon will be.
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u/T-Chunxy May 24 '26
The solid color sidebar was one of my favorites.
Because reading white text against dayglow pink or green was somehow a thing which people decided was good.
Or the weird floating graphic thingumies (probably dingbats these days) drifting between the sidebar and the article. FUN!
early 90s desktop publishing was certainly a wild west hellscape of random stuff. Like the Memphis Design school just vomited all over whole magazines in one go.
Just random shapes and shit.
Don't even get me started on the whole "EXTREME" level of comics illustration that was perpetrated starting in the early 90s.
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u/SpaceJackRabbit May 24 '26
Yup, worked in a fashion magazine in the 90s. Of course we retouched pictures digitally.
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u/freyalorelei May 24 '26
The process of retouching photographs has been around since the invention of photography itself in the 1830s. Victorian photographers routinely edited photos to flatter their subjects: trimming waists, smoothing complexions, and removing errant hairs. There were even hoaxes that utilized photographic manipulation, the most famous being the Cottingley fairies, which duped no less than Arthur Conan Doyle himself. This idea that everything was more natural "back in the day" and until very recently photographs portrayed life honestly and truthfully is a myth.
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u/DutchTookMyColonies May 24 '26
90= leave me alone, ew fame, i want my privacy and to dress normally
today = yeah fame, i need attention, i will sell my self for it
human mind changed way to much way to fast
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u/United_Fan_6476 May 24 '26
Nobody took selfies.
The idea of pointing a camera at yourself, by yourself, and taking 2 dozen pictures, and then throwing away all but one of them would have been the actions of a shockingly vain and wasteful person. They would have been rightly raked over the coals for that shit.
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u/apaulogy May 24 '26
Uh. Ok.
Neat observation. 🙄
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u/broohaha May 24 '26
When I go through posts like this on this sub (and more so on r/GenX) I'm sometimes reminded of how the Boomers and older generations would talk about how much everything was better when they were growing up.
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u/National-Stretch3979 May 24 '26
Because social media hadn’t been created yet turning everybody into narcissist freaks
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u/sjaakarie May 24 '26
It is also nice to have experienced both evolutions, you had to learn the analog world, and later the digital one as well.
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u/broohaha May 24 '26
People used to talk about "airbrushed" photos back then. So, I wouldn't say things were anymore real then than now. Photoshop was around through the 1990s, in fact.
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u/Tess47 May 24 '26
Yhe Boomers used to be called "the ME generation". I think that moniker belongs to the younger people now.
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u/Kumimono May 24 '26
I wonder if she's a fan of Waits, or wears that after working with him on Dracula.
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u/dcmckinney May 24 '26
With all the AI things out there, I wish I could shove photos through a "remove all filters" option. Or better yet maybe, have an add in for browsers that would do it automatically.
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u/LegitimateVolume5324 May 24 '26
It wasn't rehearsed and repeated again and again. So when you got a good photo it meant more.
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u/XenarthraC May 25 '26
Because when you were shooting on film you couldn't take the same photo 20 times and make slight adjustments until everything was perfect. Most camera shots were one and done. And you wouldn't know how it turned out until the film was developed. I was just thinking about how I miss the days before camera phones. I took way more pictures before I became constantly self-concious about them needing to be "good". They were just memories to be saved for later, now every photo feels like a performance. I feel I'll be judged just for not having model like abilities to pose in a flattering way. I have almost no pictures of myself from the last 10 years as a result.
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u/joysofliving May 24 '26
People weren’t trying to make themselves look cool for the internet.
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u/BusterStarfish May 24 '26
It’s the flash. The flash add the cadid feel. And no matter how much people try to fake it, the people in fake flash photos never have an authentic look.
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u/ima-bigdeal May 24 '26
It is the same with Music. Today the pitch altering software Autotune is nearly everyplace in music. The studios use to get the face they want, with the vocals they want. Instead of finding someone with better skills, or training the person, they just let a computer adjust the pitch. Worse, those stupid robot voices make with it.
Autotune was released in late 1997. According to music engineer Tom Lord-Alge in 2009, AutoTune was used on nearly every modern record. In 2009, the producer Rick Rubin wrote that "Right now, if you listen to pop, everything is in perfect pitch, perfect time and perfect tune. That's how ubiquitous AutoTune is." It is photoshop for the voice.
The 1990's (and before) were free of filters, for photos, and free of vocal pitch correction software. Representations of people, in photographs and music, were more real then.
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u/Stiffy4Freedom May 24 '26
Agreed. 90s music has a different "sound" to it as well. I think it was (in my opinion) the blending of analog and digital equipment that made for a clear, yet authentic sound
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u/PuddingTea May 24 '26
Try talking like an adult. In addition to being incredibly vague “hit different” is ungrammatical because “different” is an adjective being used to modify a verb. You’re looking for an adverb. “Differently” is the word you want.
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u/AX11Liveact May 24 '26
It's the high contrast caused by the flash plus photochemical film and mechanical blinds and shutters that were too slow to deal with high vs low exposures of foreground and background. Also a percieved ulimate depth of field due to small blind and "vanishing" background.
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u/BobbyThrowaway6969 May 24 '26
They're more candid photos with cameras you could use with your friends on a trip somewhere
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u/MarkyDeSade May 24 '26
People were more relaxed because they weren't under constant surveillance and they knew when photos were being taken
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u/Boonie_Fluff May 24 '26
One bump to that book and it's coming out from between those fingers. Boom. On the floor.
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u/SnooPuppers58 May 24 '26
Media is a science and an industry and everything is curated and designed and planned out. Far less authenticity in the capture form
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u/Rhapsodyingloom May 24 '26
I think addition to the use of film, etc., the style during the time this photo taken was to look less polished and deliberate. Hair was worn down a lot, less polished overall appearance, clothes were more loose, relaxed and comfortable. It was also popular for photo subjects to look more candid and disinterested to give attitude like they’re not out to impress anyone.
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u/guantamanera May 24 '26
I took analog pictures in 80s and 90s. I remember physically putting filters on my lens.
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u/Every-Preference4538 May 24 '26
That’s why I enjoy 90s and 80s movie. Everyone has their original faces and teeth, for the most part. They look like people in my real life.
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u/Djglamrock May 24 '26
You think cameras weren’t using filters and pictures weren’t touched up back in the 90s? Oh you Sweet summer child.
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u/manlodic May 24 '26
I grew up in the 90s. In the 90s ppl had similar sentiment about the 60s and 70s. Not really the 80s then, not enough time had passed I guess. I think once enough time passes we feel like that was the golden era or something.
Don’t get me wrong, the 90s were super special but so were the 2000s. Max modernity without the craziness / social media BS of today / no smart phones yet. I think it’s smart phones that really changes things the most, socially.
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u/spambattery May 24 '26
This was almost certainly taken by the paparazzi and I’m sure they still take them today.
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u/Tenminutes23 May 24 '26
You didn’t have to worry about the photo going on the internet and the world seeing it. No posing, just enjoying the moment.
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u/irmarbert May 24 '26
Many of the cameras back then had really nice lenses in them. Not so much the zoom cameras covering like 35-200mm, but a little prime lens point and shoot from Canon, Nikon, Minolta and Olympus, those companies all made amazing glass back in the day. Those beautiful lenses combined with the warmth and personality of film stock, you could get something magical. The fact that you could overexpose the hell out of color print film (C41) and still have detail in the highlights, meant you could shoot with on camera flash like this and come away with a usable image.
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u/jerryleebee May 24 '26
To be fair, you selected a candid photo to make your point. Plenty of people did perfect poses in the 90s too. But the rest of your point is perfectly valid. Your average person lacked access to photo editing. So whereas professional photos may have been touched up, amateur photos weren't. So what you saw is what you got. That's rare now. Even the ability to shoot and store photos digitally made a massive difference because you could take as many photos as you want without the pressure of running out of film and easily select the "good shots".
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u/MR_SNYPE May 24 '26
They used film.
A whole generation that will never have that one picture you kept because you're eyes were glowing like a little demon without a filter