On Saturday, Sept. 6, Black & Brown in San Jose transformed into a gallery alive with analog energy. Eric Weiss’ portraits of ’80s and ’90s icons, from Madonna to Tupac, hung beside rows of restored vintage cameras, including Leicas, Nikon rangefinders and large-format machines. At the center of the exhibit stood two men: Weiss, the photographer who captured the pulse of New York’s cultural heyday, and Tomek Mackowiak, a Bay Area craftsperson dedicated to reviving the tools of film photography.
Their collaboration was not just about nostalgia. It was a meditation on memory, patience and the tactile joy of film in a digital world, reminding us that slowing down can be the boldest act of all.
Weiss’ journey into photography began suspended between boyish play and artistic awakening. Babysitting younger cousins as a 12-year-old, he detected a glow of alchemy in his cousin’s makeshift darkroom, a moment he describes as luminous and irrevocable. Books his mother kept at home, with anthropological photographs, further fueled his desire to see how others lived and to traverse worlds via images. A security gig at the Brooklyn Museum brought him face-to-face with a Life photographer’s exhibition—Eliot Elisofon’s African reportage—and crystallized his path.
“It was like a miracle, seeing a blank sheet of paper suddenly having an image on it,” Weiss said, romanticizing his first experience in a darkroom at his cousin’s house.
By his early 20s, Weiss was deeply immersed in New York’s frenetic rush for celebrity and fashion. Without formal pathways into the glossy magazines, he navigated through event PR networks, offering to photograph events for agencies so his work could be seen and run in Women’s Wear Daily. One morning after photographing a high-profile event, he delivered contact sheets to the editor, who not only published them but told him he’d like to hire him for future projects. That day marked the start of a career spanning Vogue, The New York Times and behind the velvet ropes of pop culture’s upper echelon.
Before long, Weiss found himself brushing shoulders with the elite. Not every encounter was pleasant—he recalls moments of rudeness, like a sour exchange with Madonna—but others left him with lasting warmth. While photographing backstage at the Grammys for the Times, he crossed paths with Beyoncé. Expecting a carefully guarded star, he was struck instead by her openness. When he asked to take her portrait, she agreed without pretense, leaving him with an impression that stayed with him.
“She was so just so polite and was like, ‘I hope it turns out good,’” he said.
What propelled his work from snapshots to artifacts was his approach: Like a surfer, he waited for the perfect wave—the decisive visual moment. Surrounded by photogs flashing relentlessly in the chaos of film-era event lighting, he learned to be quiet, respectful, invisible, patient.
Even today, Weiss shoots film not for nostalgia but for its mindful precision. And though the process is more involved than digital, the photography veteran declares that film remains gratifying. While portraiture is still his first love, he now mostly captures Northern California’s landscapes for pleasure.
“I love going out to Death Valley and chasing the light with a 4×5 view camera,” Weiss said.
Film photography’s decline was dramatic but not total. In the U.S., photography reporter Pete Brook discovered sales of film cameras plummeted from 19.7 million units in 2000 to under 250,000 by 2010. Camera brands, labs and empires disintegrated. Kodachrome processing ended in 2010, and the last roll was developed in a Kansas lab in January 2011, according to KANSAS! Magazine.
But analog isn’t dead, and the market has slowly revived. By 2023, global film production rose 18% year-over-year, distributing more than 20 million rolls worldwide, according to Market Growth Reports. Gen Z and millennials are embracing film for its authenticity, imperfections and “romantic mistakes” like grain and light leaks, journalist Ellie Violet Bramley reported last year.
Why? It’s not just visuals; it’s the process. Film photography demands presence: manual loading, focused composition and timed exposures. Both Mackowiak and Weiss say that “digital fatigue,” “dopamine overload” and the desire for slow craft propel film’s resurgence. Analog photography offers delayed gratification, mindfulness and a tangible artifact in a commodified digital flood.
Yet constraints remain: Fewer than 1,200 full-service labs worldwide (in 2023), processing delays and rising costs challenge the analog revival, another Market Growth Report states. Still, art schools, workshops and analog festivals are growing fast. East Bay Photo Collective, for example, is an Oakland-based nonprofit aiming to provide inspiration, education and community through photography.
Mackowiak’s relationship to film is hands-on. A self-identified technical person, he found grounding in the analog process when other art forms like painting proved too challenging for him. He shoots plenty in his free time, but his main focus is vintage camera collection. Mackowiak collects, repairs and rebuilds everything from World War II-era Leicas to medium- and large-format systems, with the hope of providing film photographers with access to working tools.
“It’s my little way of giving back to the film community,” he said.
He sees analog photography as an accessible form of high art. One roll only yields one or two perfect frames—but those frames become cherished and more meaningful. Film demands precision, offers physicality and gives emotional rewards that the fast shooting nature of digital cannot, he argues. In a world of instant everything, Mackowiak says analog is deliberate beauty.
Mackowiak invited Weiss into what began as a solo camera show because he admired his extensive body of high-profile work. On Sept. 6, attendees browsed grids of Weiss’ celebrity portraits—fashion icons, musicians, political figures. They also saw Mackowiak’s restored vintage cameras. The two photographers want the show to inspire people desiring to learn more about the world of film.
“I hope people can feel that my work touches a part of their soul,” Weiss said.
