The Beauty of Imperfections.

Authenticity and Perfection

Fine dining and fine art share the same problem: when they are made entirely for an audience, they stop being honest.

"All of the things I need for happiness: Low plastic stool, check. Tiny little plastic table, check. Something delicious in a bowl, check."

What is it about the plastic stool and tiny plastic table that is so romantic for Anthony Bourdain? It is romantic for me because it reminds me of my childhood, running around the streets of Ho Chi Minh City chasing the next thing I could eat or playing games in the little alleys with my friends till nightfall, when eventually, my parents had to contact every household in the neighborhood of Xóm Mới to track me down. The plastic stools and tiny tables remind me of the life I once had, when I felt like I was the child prince of Saigon. But what about Bourdain? Why does this resonate so much with a chef who is experiencing this moment for the first time in his forties?

This is when and where, regardless of your background or origins, all humans connect. Bourdain might not have the same connection to the plastic stool as I do, but it is what the stool represents to Bourdain and his values that makes this romantic. The values that often lead him to seek authenticity in something raw, something as imperfect as the bowl of noodles he is about to receive on the side of the street that is as perfectly delicious as a filet mignon in one of his restaurants.

Bourdain recognized the performative and soulless nature of fine dining. He was a champion for "low cuisine" - street food, roadside stalls, and noodles that were not styled for the camera. He understood that food made entirely for an audience replaces the thing itself. What Bourdain found on the plastic stool, a whole generation is looking for now.

Authenticity and nostalgia

Close your eyes. Imagine it is 2013 and you are in high school. HD TV, 1080 resolution, googling every debate, facebook and social media that gives you instant connection to your friends, tight jeans, American Eagle hoodie, and the beginning of the smartphone era - the age of the digital native. Now open your eyes. It is 2026 and teenagers are shooting 35mm film, buying records, thrifting early 2000s clothing and antique shopping, and asking their parents for analog technology of yesteryear.

This is not nostalgia. Nostalgia is a longing for something you have actually lived through and experienced. An eighteen-year-old picking up a film camera for the first time has no memory of that era, so therefore they cannot be nostalgic. This is something else completely. This is a longing to be more engaged with the process of listening to music, or the process of taking a photo.

Vinyl record sales have outsold CDs in the US every year since 2020, not because the sound is better, but because the ritual is. Unless you are an audiophile, the sound of a record spinning on a turntable versus the sound that goes through your phone to your airpods makes no discernible difference. Oftentimes, the sound quality on a turntable is even worse, depending on the audio system. But the ritual of taking the record out of the beautiful album sleeve, putting it on the turntable, and slowly lowering the lever, makes us feel more connected to the music and engaged with the art itself. There is a certain romance to it.

I believe the shift to analog technology represents something much more than just nostalgia. It represents humanity in search of authenticity, in search of something that resists being optimized before it reaches you. There is a hunger, in a generation raised entirely inside digital systems, for a process that has weight and consequence and cannot be undone. The process is the point.

Why we shoot film

This is why we shoot film. It's the struggle, it's the delayed gratification, and it's the imperfect nature of the outcome. This is what we have learned to find beauty in.

Unlike mindlessly pointing your phone at a scene and tapping the screen, film forces us to think, to tap into our creativity, our individualism, to create something that is uniquely a representation of us. It represents us. It allows us to understand ourselves and make a connection to others. And regardless if we nailed exposure or not, how grainy the photo might be, if there's a light leak, etc. we will always have the moment where we were truly present, internally and externally, the moment where we tapped into our own thoughts and creativity. We will always be there.

often times i try to shoot a frame before getting to the first frame and i would often get photos like this that are beautifully ruined

What film taught me

Shooting film is slower, more expensive, and more uncertain than anything a phone can do. You shoot and you wait, and sometimes pray. Some frames will not work. Some rolls will be ruined entirely. There is no playback, no undo, no second take. By every practical measure, it is the worst choice.

And yet, the limitation is the whole idea. Thirty-six frames on a roll changes how you raise the camera. The fact that you cannot see what you have changes how much attention you give to what is in front of you. The mechanical object that could fail at any moment makes you feel connected to the process in a way that something frictionless and digital does not. The limitation is not a flaw in the system. It is the beauty of the system.

The Japanese have a word for it called wabi-sabi which is the idea that the beauty of things are impermanent, incomplete, and imperfect. Film has taught me the lesson of gratitude. I have learned to appreciate the imperfections of film and through this, learn to appreciate the imperfections of life and all of its processes. There is no perfect moment, so stop chasing the perfect frame. The frame that is accidentally double-exposed turns out to be one of the most interesting frames you ever make. But if you only focus on how that frame is ruined, you will never learn to appreciate its imperfect nature.

The imperfection is the information

Most of what we scroll past was made for an audience. Most of what we eat was styled for a camera. At some point, the performance replaced the thing itself. One of the beauties of imperfection is that it removes the performance. And once you strip away performance, you will come into contact with something authentic that will truly represent you. The plastic stool is how we find our way back to what makes us uniquely us.