Digital has been eating photography alive for two decades—then along comes 2026, and film decides it’s not dead yet.
A new camera called the Analogue AF-1 is being pitched as a straight-up love letter to old-school shooting: no computational tricks, no AI “enhancements,” no instant gratification. Just you, a roll of film, and the humbling possibility that you blew the exposure and won’t know it until days later.
And the timing isn’t accidental. France is gearing up for a nationwide “Bicentennial of Photography” celebration in 2026–2027—basically a two-year party marking 200 years since the medium’s early breakthroughs. So while the rest of the world argues about phone camera megapixels, France is polishing the silver halides and throwing exhibitions.
The Analogue AF-1: A Camera That Makes You Slow Down (Whether You Like It or Not)
The AF-1 is aimed at people who miss the era when photography required patience and a little competence. Think of the crowd that still talks about Nikon’s FM2 and FM3A the way car guys talk about a ’69 Camaro—simple, tough, and built for hands that know what they’re doing.
The pitch here is “back to basics”: you pick your film stock, you set your controls, you commit. No algorithm swooping in afterward to rescue your mistakes. That’s the whole point—and also the whole risk.
There’s romance in that, sure. There’s also frustration. Film forces you to wait. It forces you to live with your choices. And it forces you to pay for every frame, which is a pretty effective cure for spray-and-pray shooting.
The big question is price. The original French piece flags the obvious problem: if the AF-1 costs too much compared with used vintage bodies, a lot of would-be buyers will just grab a secondhand classic and spend the difference on film and lab scans. If the AF-1 wants to win, it can’t just be “nostalgia in a box.” It has to justify itself.
France’s Bicentennial of Photography: Two Years of Exhibitions, Screenings, and Meetups
While the AF-1 tries to lure people back to the darkroom, France is planning a sweeping national celebration of photography across 2026 and 2027. The Bicentennial is set up as a series of exhibitions, screenings, and events spread around the country—meant to cover everything from photography’s origins to the weird, experimental stuff that makes museum visitors squint and pretend they get it.
For Americans: this is the French Ministry of Culture flexing. France treats photography like part of its national identity—something to curate, fund, debate, and export. The Bicentennial is designed to pull in everyone from serious photographers to curious tourists who just want a good show.
Organizers are also putting real effort into a unified visual identity for the Bicentennial—branding that ties partners and projects together while staying within the ministry’s official design rules. That sounds bureaucratic because it is. But it also signals this isn’t a scrappy grassroots festival; it’s a coordinated national push meant to travel internationally.
A Separate Prize With Real Money: Clervaux’s 2026 Photography Awards
Over in Luxembourg, the Prix de la Photographie—run by Clervaux, which bills itself as a “City of the Image”—will keep handing out awards in 2026. It’ll be the third edition, and it’s focused on contemporary photographers doing original work and serious experimentation.
The prize has two tracks: a jury prize and a public prize. And unlike a lot of arts awards that pay in “exposure,” this one comes with cash—up to €10,000 for the jury prize, or about $10,900 at current exchange rates.
The point is to reward photographers who push the medium forward, even as the broader culture keeps sliding toward frictionless, auto-corrected imagery. It’s a neat contrast: one corner of Europe is celebrating 200 years of photography’s past, another is paying people to mess with its future, and a new film camera is trying to sell the idea that limitations are the whole thrill.
