Camera from Athens

Source

Back in the day (before everything went digital) dropping your film off at the developer meant someone else saw your photos before you did. Well, what if you’d never seen your photos, because you weren’t the one who took them? The Camera From Athens is a disposable camera that contains 27 undeveloped photos from Greece, each shot by an up-and-coming artist. Every camera is different, and you purchase it not knowing which photographer you’ll get. I’d really like to know who shot my pics ahead of time, but I still love it. The $45 price tag may seem a bit steep, but with 27 chances to get a beautiful piece of original art, I think it’s well worth it. Pick one up online at Up To You Toronto. — Erica P.

Ben Heine - Pencil vs Camera

Source

This isn't really in the style of our usual posts, but we love this project, entitled 'Pencil vs Camera', by Ben Heine so much that we had to blog about it! We just think it's amazing how they line up so perfectly.

Disposable Photographs

Source

by Jose

Toilet Paper is hardly an auspicious name for a photography magazine. Reflecting on the title of this new commercial and advertising magazine and the reasons why an editor would choose to imbue their publication with such clear derogatory connotations, I remembered what Eileen, a keen contributor to this blog, said to me at the Brighton Photo Biennial: “there is so much ‘disposable photography’ around…”

‘Disposable photography’. Eileen’s remark has been stuck in my mind from the minute I heard it. In fact, it has become a curse too because now I see trivial, self-indulgent images taken by self-absorbed citizen-photographers absolutely everywhere. The image-upload statistics on the internet, symptomatic of this malaise, are mind-boggling:

• There are nearly 5,000 new images uploaded to Flickr every minute
• Every 60 seconds there are 35 new hours of video uploaded on YouTube
• Facebook is growing at a rate of 60 million new images per week – that’s nearly 6,000 per minute

The great majority of those images are disposable photographs which say more about the person who took them than anything else. To me, they are best described as snippets of triviality. This is what I struggle with as a humanist documentary photographer. For me photography is not about the person who took the image but about the world, that is, about stories that take us along new paths of understanding. The counter-argument is that photographs also function as visual mnemonic devices that encapsulate personal life experiences of those who took them. As such, they are also a document, albeit a private one.

Take, for example, Vice, a free lavishly illustrated print & online magazine about the on implausible topics, some of which are undoubtedly controversial – just have a look at the features listed on the home page. The printed version of the magazine, slightly less outrageous than the online one, is packed with photography which seems to have been sourced out of social networking websites. After much deliberation I’ve come to the conclusion that those immediate, unsophisticated, true-to-the-moment photographs that I see in Vice are perhaps a new kind of documentary photography which may well do away with the documentary photographer sooner than we think.

Disposable images are also slightly surreal, showing a lived experience – that of the person who took the photograph – but devoid of any contextual information to make sense of it. All that one can do is speculate about whatever was in the mind of whoever took the photograph. Pure surrealism then, trying to figure out the workings of the unconscious… Is this why there is a marked surrealist trend in contemporary documentary I wonder? You only have to look at the the dark, sinister photographs by Anders Petersen and Jacob Aue Sobol or the colour worlds featured in Dayfour magazine to notice that surrealist undercurrent. Is this the way we are being trained to see?

Perhaps the best thing to do with disposable photographs is what Stephen Gill did with his polaroids: bury them. Well, not quite; he then dug them up and made a book with them – Buried. See what I mean? These days you can even make a book with images you have disposed of.

Recyclable Camera Photography

Source

Continuing our exploration of the world of toy and economy photography (see previous polaroid page), I was delighted to have the opportunity to do what all the adverts told me and get a recyclable camera for New Years Eve 1999. Recyclable cameras - otherwise known as 'disposable' or 'single-use' or 'one-time-use' cameras - are those ones you buy with a film built-in, and when you've taken the photos you hand the whole unit to your photo processor, who develops your pics and returns the camera to its maker for recycling (hopefully).

I remember when they first came out, in 1989 probably, and they reviewed one in Smash Hits. The photos were really foggy and rubbish, and the artistic potential didn't really strike me at the time.

For my Millennium Eve try-out, at Cream 2000 (big dance event in Liverpool), I really wanted to get the cheapest one possible, which was five pounds (eight US dollars) in Woolworths, but for some reason I didn't (I think I believed that it simply couldn't work at all if it was that cheap), so unfortunately I ended up getting a relatively-swanky Kodak one -- as pictured above -- for ten pounds at a petrol station, six hours before that much-hyped midnight. So here are four of the pictures, worst one first.

This is Orbital at five seconds to midnight. You can see some big number fives if you look, er, closely. But obviously it is a crap photo and this is exactly what you expect a photo from a ten pound camera to look like. (As with all these, in fact, I've digitally tweaked it and the original was worse than this).

This is another of the rubbish kind of photo you expect to get out of a throwaway camera. It's a self-portrait probably. And it's earlier. You don't get trees at Cream obviously.

But look at this glorious image of Liverpool's finest chip chefs. I thought this was quite good really. A £200 camera would take the same photo under these circumstances.

And look at this fine portrait photography. Well-known club promoter Charles Cheung looks pleased with his event.

A project by Big Hope: Erhardt Miklós / Dominic Hislop

Source

Between July 1997-February 1998, 40 disposable cameras were given to homeless people in Budapest. Each participant was asked to take photographs of whatever they felt to be important or interesting in their everyday experience, in the knowledge that their pictures would later be viewed publicly as part of an exhibition and web site. The participants were approached on a fairly random basis in the city's metro stations and homeless shelters. When the prints were ready we recorded an interview with each photographer about their pictures. Through the support of our sponsors we were able to recompense the participants for their work.

Taking Pictures With a Disposable Camera, by Phil Pivnick

People use disposable cameras all the time because they're cheap, easy and convenient. Still, some of the most common mistakes in photography happen because people don’t quite understand a few basic things about their disposable camera.

The biggest mistake by far is assuming that all disposable cameras are the same. This couldn’t be farther from the truth; yet time and again a customer will choose the less expensive camera thinking there’s no difference but price. I promise that there really are good and bad quality disposables.    

First there is a difference between the film each disposable uses. Less expensive cameras often contain lesser quality films. This can result in very bland colors or worse. Don’t forget that even trusted brands like Kodak offer low and high end films. It is also important to make sure that the film in the camera is a good ISO. Since the lenses on disposable cameras are never what the professionals describe as “fast,” a high speed film is essential. If it will be used in the bright outdoors then a 200iso or 400iso is okay, but otherwise stick with the 800iso film. A lot of customers shy away from that option because 800iso is known for being grainy; even if that is the case it’s also a sacrifice worth making for clarity. 

 Almost all disposable cameras have a flash. Use it. Give yourself time before taking a picture to push the flash button to charge the flash. Make sure you don’t take the picture until the “flash ready” light is lit. When taking close-up shots of people it is almost always safer to use the flash than not. Trusting the available light is not only risky, but they type of film used in the camera assumes you will use the flash.

The exception to this rule is when the subject is just too far away. Remember that the flash can only light up subject within 10 feet or so. Notice the flashes that always go off from the stands at a sports game? Using the flash at those times will likely hurt your photograph.  There is no way it will illuminate your subject, but it may bounce back from the guy in front of you. 

The other distance to keep in mind is 3 feet. If you are taking a picture of something closer than that it will more than likely be out of focus. This isn’t a flaw, just an unfortunate fact of physics. Another reason for keeping the subject a bit farther away is that what you see through the viewfinder isn’t exactly what is seen by the lens. Again, physics. Once the subject is about 3 feet away then things are pretty much lined up. It’s still a good idea to leave room for mistakes at the top and bottom of the frame—just in case.

Once you’re okay with all of this then it’s as easy as grab a camera, point and shoot.  Then, as long as you keep your finger away from the lens, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Source: Stare Photography

Experiments with Disposable Cameras

Some great ideas for playing around with your disposable camera from this article :)

● Double Exposure

I'd recently found and used up an old black&white disposable I found in a box not too long ago, and it reignited my interest in using something other than digital. So when my boyfriend and I were browsing through Gizmodo and saw the weekly contest about disposable cameras, we instantly wanted to get out of our comfort zone and try our hand at it. We bought a two pack of Fujifilm Quick Snap Flash 35mms and set out looking for ideas. I knew right off that I wanted to attempt multiple exposures. It took a few frames to finally figure it out but we got there eventually. After taking photos of random things (hoping they'd be layered), I decided I wanted more of a method to the chaos. I convinced my boyfriend to be my muse and shot different aspects of him (his hands, shoulders, arms, face, feet, and hair) against a muted backdrop so the color of his skin would be a meshed focal point. And I'm pretty happy with how it came out.


-Mai S

● Pinwheel

I used a DiFox color plus premium edition "happy click" with a 400ASA. When the bright yellow poorly fitted cardboard outside was peeled back, it revealed a disposable with Spanish printed on it, taped together with gaffer's tape at the corner. Deluxe!

My boyfriend came home with a two pack and the rules of this contest on Friday. I had a killer sinus infection, but there was a kick ass sunset in progress, so I ran around the terrace in my slippers, mostly taking photos of that. When I decided that I needed a little something extra in there, I popped this pinwheel flower that a guy I work with gave me when boyfriend and I got engaged two weeks ago. I think the soft focus in the foreground and the puffy white sunset clouds in the background make for something kind of magical. Most of my other shots were crap, but I really liked the whole "I have no idea what I just shot" aspect of shooting with this little box. I've kind of forgotten what that was like.


-Bree Bolger

● Windshield Filter

This shot was unplanned but worked out the best. It was taken through the windshield while riding in a friend's car. The blue-tinted strip of glass at the top provided a great faux cross-processed sky. Taken
with Fujifilm disposable (400 speed film), developed at Costco while I impulse-bought bulk items I didn't need, and resized in Photoshop.


-Nick Sprankle

Disposables are the New Polaroids.

April 5, 2011
By Luke Pommersheim

Disposables are the new Polaroids. The appeal lies in functionality, their analog nature making them the antithesis of the modern digital camera. Disposables embrace limited exposures, the viewfinder and not instantly judging your feigned smile. That’s the beauty. Digital cameras offer no secrets and no surprises, immediately displaying themselves, begging for instant assessment. The disposable makes you wait. The picture is hidden, only the camera knows what it saw.

Disposable cameras capture reality. Equipped with only a flash, they see any moment as it exists purely in that moment. They refuse to zoom, adjust to brightness, remove red-eye or detect your face. The picture captured is as naked and exposed as the individual. With no chance to delete or re-take, the disposable camera captures the truth. The camera achieves its goal – capturing a single vulnerable moment in all its unpolished and ugly glory. Digital cameras create fabrications of reality and memory. By allowing us to get the picture we want they allow us to create the memory we want. Disposable cameras afford no such luxury.

Digital cameras are carefully guarded possessions. The owner eyes its every movement like a hawk eyes a field mouse. Such expensive cameras are not to be lost or forgotten. They never really make the rounds at a party. Disposables, like STDs, get passed from person to person, no one ever quite knowing the journey, but somehow getting stuck with it anyway (usually in the bathroom with your pants down). The very nature of the disposable camera is to be lost and forgotten until the end of the night. The disposable knows when the party is over. It’s 3 AM, it’s spent, it’s ready to go home. Just like a whipped boyfriend it’ll come crawling back into your arms, acting all innocent and adorable.

Disposable cameras are the only cameras that get used and abused by everyone at a party (another characteristic shared with whipped boyfriends). The point of the disposable camera isn’t to take pictures – it’s to get them developed. The experience has nothing to do with being behind the lens or in front of it – the experience lies in flipping through fresh prints, unraveling its secret adventure.

See the original article here :)