Fujifilm's disastrous year feat. Tatsuo Suzuki

Fujifilm has not had a great year last year, and their mishap-streak is continuing well into 2020s. The latest scandal surrounding the controversy-ridden brand is connected to Tatsuo Suzuki, an award-winning street photographer from Tokyo, who they hired to star in one of their promotional videos for their latest compact camera, the Fujifilm X100V. In the video (see below) Fujifilm introduces Tatsuo and follows him on the streets of Tokyo to show how he creates his art. His style of spray and pray directly into pedestrians' faces turned out to be very controversial in Japan, and a growing number of netizens started to complain about it. It reached a level where it was just bad press, so Fujifilm decided to pull the video. Here's a copy of the video which was uploaded by a Japanese netizen for posterity:

My view of the Tatsuo Suzuki scandal

If Fujifilm wanted to create a controversy, they definitely succeeded. Personally I am not in favor of cancel culture, and I think that even though people believe some art is created in poor taste, it's still art, and it should not be removed because it offends. So I disagree with Fuji on the removal (although I understand it from a PR point of view), but I am also not a fan of Suzuki's photography and the way he goes about his craft. I believe street photography can be candid and also not so obtrusive and rude at the same time. The image on the left was posted by a netizen in that same Twitter thread and it shows Tatsuo taking a portrait of himself in the toilet while someone is taking a leak at the back. That's definitely hard to defend, as it goes way over the line for most people. As a result of the huge backlash, Tatsuo seems to have deleted his Twitter account. You can still check his Instagram and Flickr, where a lot of his photos are still available and you can make up your own mind.

Fuji's disastrous year examined

This wasn't the first controversy surrounding Fujifilm in the past year, there were several others. The last one before the current was the controversial launch of the Fujifilm X-Pro3 camera, that had a hidden flip-out LCD screen and a tiny OLED screen that showed digital film roles. Derided as a big gimmick, the camera got a lot of bad reviews by a lot of influencers, among them guys who are total Fuji fans. The worst part was that the crippled camera cost 1800 USD (and a titanium model 2000 USD), a price that usually gets you a decent mid-level full frame camera like the Sony A7 iii or the Nikon Z6. Soon after the launch of that model Peta Pixel reported that several users had screens that showed over exposed images. So the very same hidden LCD screen also had a major hardware issue right out of the factory. Around the same time DP Review made a video and asked whether Fujifilm is losing their kaizen mojo. Kaizen is a Japanese word for gradual updates and improvements, something Fuji prided itself on, but in recent year did not deliver on much unlike Canon and Nikon for example.

Fuji is getting worse

Once touted as an outstanding camera brand known for innovation and customer service, Fujifilm has seemingly turned into a mediocre lifestyle brand that tries to overcharge for gimmicks, has a lot of quality control issues, and doesn't deliver many updates anymore. And the fact that their largest influencer in the USA is an Einstein conspiracy theorist who is producing 10 videos a day from his Kentucky basement and thrives on controversy himself is just sad. I do hope Fuji can somehow dig themselves out of this hole. Some of their cameras are nice, but still way overpriced for what you get and poor in terms of ergonomics and durability (I know, because I had one not long ago).


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