Using a Disposable Camera

So Ive not had much experience with disposable cameras in the past but I know my parents used to use them a lot. I remember when I used to go to the beach with my family and they would be taking a handful of disposable camera's with them.

So when I got myself a Kodak Fun-saver from amazon, I was excited to see how I'd get on with it. At first I almost felt like a caveman, trying to work out how best to use a camera that had no zoom or any way of checking the results of the pictures I take. In a way that made me very excited, as I waited with anticipation to have my collection of photographs sent to me. I did notice a few times that I would be getting strange looks while I was walking about with a disposable camera in my hand, this is probably because it is more common to see a mobile phone or DSLR type camera going about nowadays.

Upon receiving my photographs, I was very surprised with the quality of some of the photos. I lot of the photos were very dark, I realized that I hadn't used the flash at all, which was very frustrating but I still got some great images. 

These first ones came out very vivid and sharp which was very surprising. I tried not to overthink what I was doing and just point and shoot whenever I saw a good opportunity. I took most of these photos at Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery on a very cold wet day. I took 3 of my classmate with me and we all took a collection of photographs. I'm looking forward to seeing their results from our visit.

I love playing with angles and perspective in my photography work and I tried to incorporate this technique while using this camera. Im very happy with the one on the bridge where you can see my feet. I like to include my feet when I can in my photography work, its like I'm putting my own personal stamp into the image, I do this with my David Hockney photography where I join up my photos to make one image.

These are a selection of the ones that are too dark to make out, but I still quite like them, theirs a subtlety to them that gives them a very delicate feel. My favorite is the one of my dog Max, the light follows his form and creates and interesting silhouette. I also like the one where only the lights are visable. Its quite hard to make these photos out without physically holding them in your hand and viewing them. I thought about scanning them into my computer to upload onto here, but I felt like that would take away from the idea of a disposable camera, I personally feel like using a disposable camera should be a physical process, from taking the photos to feeling the printed photos in your hands. Theirs something really rewarding about that. 

Here's a few more from my printouts that didn't work out very well. This is the only downside to not being able to see what you have taken. If I had known that the image was out of focus I would've adjusted. The photograph at the bottom right has my finger in the way, which is very frustrating as it would been a really nice photograph otherwise. Again, this would've been avoided if I could've seen what I had taken instantly.

Overall, I really enjoy the whole experience of using a disposable camera, I got very nostalgic at the sound of winding up the film to take the next photograph. I actually loved waiting for the results to arrive, it took 5 days in total to send away and to get back to me, which wasn't bad at all. But with phones nowadays where you can literally point and shot, then see the results instantly. It kinda leaves the disposable camera some what redundant. But I do feel like their is a certain kind of magic behind the whole process of developing photographs that digital photography lacks. That is more than enough reason to try out another disposable camera.