Disposable Camera Photo Book
This post is the first in a series called:
I’m debuting a new series where I will be sharing ideas for creative experiences that create deeper connections with your friends, family and community.
Each post will feature a Game, Gift or Gathering that is an experience I’ve either created and produced myself or is adapted from a beloved classic.
Please borrow or adapt these ideas as needed, and use them to create fun experiences with the people in your life.
If you do, I’d love to feature your work in a future post!
GIFT INSPIRATION STORY
September 2006. After two years of renting closet-sized bedrooms, I moved into a spacious and very affordable sublet on Guerrero Street in the Mission. I was waiting tables and freelancing as a radio producer.
San Francisco hadn’t felt like a place I could settle in until that apartment.
I had moved away from my family on the east coast two years earlier. I was conflicted about it - my grandmother was in her 90s, my sister was having kids and starting her family, and my dad was planning to retire soon.
I visited as often as I could, but I felt I was missing out on all the big changes in their lives. And they were missing out on mine.
Longing is a prime emotional state in which to find creative inspiration.
A friend had suggested I check out www.ineedyouso.com, the portfolio website of a local multidisciplinary artist. The site is now defunct, but you can find it on the Way Back Machine on archive.org.
Everything about it is a prime example of the sincere emo aesthetic that was iconic in the 2000s.
Her work was painfully personal - cringe worthy, some might say. But it was also extremely relatable. It was like reading a friend's journal.
In today’s world, this would do well on Instagram…. or Substack. 😬
She was an ARTIST and she was really throwing it all out there for all to see.
Some noteworthy projects:
She set up a tripod to capture a long exposure of her and her boyfriend sleeping at night.
She stood at the corner of Duboce and South Van Ness holding a sign with a lyric from my favorite Kelly Clarkson song. Which just feels so so mid-2000s for me.
The project of hers that inspired this post was titled i just want to know you.
A family photo book using disposable cameras.
A collaborative familial narrative. A family zine!
I loooooved the idea.
It also struck me as a thoughtful Christmas present if you were kinda broke… but I would later realize my error.
Check out my budget section for details on cost and time for this project.
I reached out to this artist and told her she had inspired me to replicate her project with my own family.
And got a response…
Once I got the blessing from my hipster muse, I went in search of disposable cameras.
If you re-create this idea, I highly recommend using disposable or point-and-shoot cameras with film.
The directive I gave my family was to document their daily routine and the “people, places and things” that were important to them.
Something like 92.5 percent of all photos are taken with a smartphone. It would have been much easier, cheaper and perhaps better for the environment to task my family with shooting images digitally.
They were given only one camera, so each image has to be an intentional one. There’s something like 24-32 images on a film roll, so every frame matters.
A disposable camera adds to the sense of the project’s novelty. We use our phones to take photos every day, so it hardly feels special.
You can’t see the image before you take it so you can’t adjust the framing, the light, the vantage point, etc. You have to compromise your aesthetic standards as you weigh the symbolic value of each image.
When the content of the moment captured is valued more the technical or aesthetic skill of capturing it - the intention shines brighter. Paired with the tactile grain of a film negative? Gorgeous images await.
The limitations of the camera combine to create what I love about the aesthetic of the snapshot: unpolished sincerity.
My mom thinks you should use disposable or point-and-shoot film cameras, too:
