Slight confusion.

While we figure the blog out, posts so far have been by two different people but only signed in on one account, so most of the posts so far have actually been by Hannah Curson!

We'll make sure we're signed in on our own accounts in the future!

The Disposable Memory Project.

we're leaving disposable cameras around the world. people are picking them up, taking a few photos and passing them on, eventually returning home - so we can tell their stories.

This is a great idea.

Check out the website here.

Ultimate Ways to Use a Disposable Camera.

SMACK SOME EXTRA EXPOSURES OUT OF IT

Our first tip started out as a simple way to get our disposable’s flash to fire, but we soon discovered something far greater.

Much to our surprise, this trick will also often force the shutter open to make a double exposure!

The process is simple:

• Charge your flash
• Hold camera in one hand, and SMACK! it down onto the palm of your other hand (lens facing out)
• The flash will fire, and you may get a double exposure as well!

FLASH FILTERS!

Hold flash filters in front of your disposable’s flash for photos with an extra splash of color.(Like this awesome one from photographermeimaimaggio on flickr!)

You can also make your own flash filters by taping cellophane, colored wrappers, waxed paper, or any other experimental material to your flash!

Another easy option? Color over your flash with a permanent marker!

LENS FILTERS!

To completely transform your image, try making a filter for your lens!

Because disposable camera lenses are so small, its easy to make DIY filters on the cheap.

Try using colored marker on packing tape, coloring directly onto your lens, using your sunglasses or soda pop bottles, or holding a prism in front of the camera!

(We made this image with a blue filter over the lens to make everything in the picture super-duper blue.)

DAMAGE THE FILM

This might sound crazy, but it can be really fun to ruin your film.

Photographer Thomas Anderson got these beautiful results just from throwing his disposable camera into a pool*. (He’s got a full set of ‘em right over here on flickr, too!)

Try leaving your disposable in the freezer, the hottest place you can find, or even poking tiny holes in your camera to intentionally cause light leaks!

Looking for more fun film damaging ideas? The damaged film group on flickr has got ya covered.

*Make sure to let your photo lab know that your film is wet. They’re going to need to dry it out before they develop it. Thanks for the tip, Alysoun!

DAMAGE THE LENS

Just as you can get great results by damaging the film inside your camera, you can get out-of-this-world photos by damaging it’s lens!

This dreamy photo (by Thomas Anderson) was made by scratching up the edges of a disposable lens with a hot screwdriver!

Other fun methods you can try: Scratching your lens with steel wool or sandpaper, melting your lens with a hot tool, painting over it with nail polish, or even taking it off and flipping it around backwards!

Head over to Disposable Distortion to see more scratched, melted, painted on, and broken lens results!

Just some of the examples from this great article (here)

Some of these I have tried, others are on my to-do list!

Kodak FunSaver.

My apologies for the awful quality of these photographs, my SLR didn't seem to want to work so I had to use my phone :(

So anyways, this is the current disposable I'm using. I realise the drawback of not having documented my journey from the start means I didn't photograph each camera variation. I did make note of each one, but when you take several cameras into be developed all at the same time it's hard to know which is which! Something I'm not planning to do in the future. I shoot film as well so there's usually at least five different sets coming back at once!

Onto the camera. 

I love this disposable. It's so easy to use and mess with. And not a bad price. I usually get them from Asda but I'm starting to find them cheaper online. Amazon has a good selection from various users. 

It's not the cheapest hobby, especially as development is at least £3.99, but you can't play with real cameras the same way, and it doesn't matter if you take it too far. Bonus.

So as you can see this camera has a blue coloured flash. The lens is a bit hard to see but it's actually painted using five different nail polishes. I've seen examples with paint which work quite well, but because nail polish is usually pretty thin I find it works best to not clog up the lens. So on this one there's yellow, pink, blue, red and glitter nail polish. I've tried to just paint around the edge and keep the centre of the lens clear.

Due to the flash on this one it's easy to slam it against your hand to get it to fire again, but I'm still struggling with not getting my fingers in the way. (I'll post some of my biggest fails later on!) I've already posted some examples of the slamming technique with this camera.

I feel I've waffled on enough now. This is definitely my disposable of choice, even though I've only tried a couple! They're a lot more difficult to come by nowadays, which is a real shame.


     

~ Hannah Curson

Experiments with 'Slamming' the camera.

Ok so I started this blog well into my disposable journey, so it's hard to remember which order my now hundreds of photos go in, so I'm just going to blog them in sets and then probably add or move them around later :)

So here's some of the better examples of the outcome when you slam the camera against your hand to get a second exposure. Although none of these really have a second image on top of the first, they show some of the other results you can get by using this technique.

This first one is just a lovely blur of colours. You can clearly see the movement of the camera in the upper left hand corner. I don't even know what this was supposed to be a photo of, but I like it!

This was done with a Kodak FunSaver single use camera (review to come!), with a blue sharpie flash and yellow and red nail polishes over the lens.

This one you can clearly see my fingers in, but I still really like the photo. I think because the fingers are blurred (they're not in many of my other photos) it doesn't look like the photo has been ruined.

This was with the Fuji QuickSnap, with a green sharpie flash and yellow nail polish over the lens.

This one again you can see the motion of the camera, but you can also see the side of the boat I was in and the oar, which is quite clear (considering!) so the contrast is nice.

Kodak FunSaver single use camera, blue sharpie flash and yellow and red nail polishes over the lens.

For this one I partially wound the camera on, which is why you get the blocks on the left.

Kodak FunSaver single use camera, blue sharpie flash and yellow nail polish over the lens.

Again partially wound on film.

Fuji QuickSnap Flash, green sharpie flash and yellow nail polish over the lens.

There's all variety of things going on in this photo! Motion blur, fingers, second exposures. All in all makes for an interesting photo!

This one was archived without a description for some reason so I'll have to look up the lens/flash details.

These last two are from the same set. Partial wind ons and fingers in the way. I find these interesting because each exposure is so different.

Kodak FunSaver single use camera, red sharpie flash and yellow nail polish over the lens.

~ Hannah Curson