the disposable memory project

Sar Friedman dropped us an email to say how much she loved our project, and wanted to get involved. Sar is already a massive fan of the disposable camera, and has taken some wonderful images. We asked her to write a few words about why disposable photography excites her:

I’m Sar Friedman. Music maker and disposable camera lover.

A breath of fresh air in a digital world.

I love the point and shoot aspect of disposable photography. I love the grain, the colours and the textures, which they are magically capable of achieving. I love the element of mystery and unpredictability – you never quite know what you are going to end up with. I love that if you wish to, you can awkwardly position the viewfinder right up over your eyes, like the good old days.

For me, the disposable has come to represent a bit of a rebellious approach to modern photography or perhaps a necessary accessory to accompany our digital pursuits. I find that carrying around a disposable camera keeps me grounded. Keeps me in a frame where I have to be mindful of restrictions that my digital camera otherwise overcomes intuitively… like considering the amount of light, distance, etc.

Similarly, with phone applications now including Instamatic, Polaroid, Lomo features and so on, it just feels so refreshing using a quaint little throw away contraption. It’s simple and basic, captures images beautifully and inspires creative endeavours like the disposable camera project! Pretty, pretty, pretty good!

Thanks for the thoughts Sar. If you’d like to share your opinions on disposable photography, do drop us a note.

Well, the unbelievable has happened. One of our cameras has made the most remarkable journey. A journey that few humans would have the opportunity to make in their lifetime. Not only has it travelled almost 19,000 miles, but it has travelled to the most extreme parts of our globe. Little Camera 159 is the camera which made its way to the South Pole, and survived the journey home to tell its tale.

It started its journey last year in Swansea, where Sally R. created the camera:

We will fly via Copenhagen to Greenland where we are being airlifted by helicopter to the ice sheets to camp out and do hydrological field work.

The camera then passed on to Sam D in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Two other cameras from the journey returned home at this point, Camera 160 and Camera 162, but our trusty little Camera 159 continued on south, to be found by Paul T. at the British Base at Rothera, Antarctica:

I was handed one of your cameras at a remote field camp called Sky-Blu at the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, whilst working for the British Antarctic Survey this summer. I took it with me on a project at the South Pole, and then returned with it to the British Base, Rothera.

If the images of Winnie the Pooh are worrying, don’t worry, polar bears haven’t turned to honey for subsistence:

I took a couple of pics at the South Pole – apologies if there are a couple of spoiled pics, but it was -30c and my gloved fingers were awkward! The giant Pooh Bear is another story altogether, but the image of a giant stuffed bear at the Pole was too good to pass up!

The camera continued on with Matt V.T. and then into the hands of Celine N, who brought it back home via Chile and Ireland.

We’re super excited to have been able to get a camera into the most extreme place on our planet, so thank you to everyone involved in getting the camera safely home. We hope you enjoy the images!

View the Camera 159 page for more details on its journey.

Camera 235 has been travelling around Singapore for the past 243 days, and has returned home with a batch of truly wonderful images.
Released in October 2009 by Shareen, the camera started its life at the opening of ‘thirtysix’, a local analogue camera shop – a perfect birth for the camera – there was even cake.

The camera moved around the city for a few months, and then we heard nothing of it until January of this year, when it was found again by Grace T, who finished off the film, and sent the camera back to the project.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the camera, and Eve T. for being our local project office and collecting the camera.
If you recognise any of the images, the people or locations in the photos, please add a comment to the Camera 235 page.

We’ve had a recent flurry of finished camera across the globe:

Camera 250 – finished in Pahang, Malaysia on December 8, 2009
Camera 249 – finished in Louisiana, USA on May 13, 2010
Camera 235 – finished in Singapore, Singapore on April 3, 2010
Camera 159 – finished in West Cork, Ireland on May 1, 2010
Camera 110 – finished in Florida, USA on June 7, 2010

As you can see, we’re still waiting on some to come home (some times it takes a while for them to get back to us in the UK!), and others have only just been finished, but in all cases, we’re really excited about getting these images online – especially Camera 159, which is our star North/Sole Pole explorer!

If you’ve got a camera in your hands, which you’ve finished, or just need to pass on, remember to drop us a line, and we’ll keep track of it.

If you’d like to help out the Project, by offering yourself as a local address where people can send completed cameras (which helps keep the cost of people sending cameras home as low as possible), drop us an email with where you live and we’ll send you details on being a local DMP office!

Serena W. is one of the top supporters of the project. Having already organised a massive batch of cameras being released in Singapore, she’s now on the case for taking over the UK too. Serena tells us about the five cameras she’s just released in Manchester:

FEUM 1001 – 1005 (5 cameras in total) were released on 24 March 2010 at the Society’s trip to Don McCullin’s photography exhibition: Shaped By War at Imperial War Museum North, Salford Quays (Manchester). The other 5 will be release at the society’s next trip.

Having this project run in the society was my initiation. Basically, I am from Singapore and came over to Manchester for my studies. I first got to know about the Disposable Memory Project through LomotionSG.com. As I was already in Manchester when I found out about this project, I decided to release my own cameras. Photography has been my hobby and I have been trying out various forms of it (including Lomography). The magic of film/ analogue photography never fail to amaze me. So when I got to know about the Disposable Memory Project, I was trilled! Prior to releasing the cameras to my fellow PhotoSoc members, I have already released 7 cameras if I am not mistaken (one of which have returned to the project and uploaded – Camera 246). Members who have received the cameras expressed that the idea is very interesting and there is this excitement within them. I think this is one very special thing/feel to this project. Looking forward to the return images (:

Thanks again Serena!

You can follow the Cameras the group dropped here:

Camera 283
Camera 285
Camera 286
Camera 287
Camera 288

More details on the journey of the camera that could.. Camera 159, our arctic explorer.
Sam has written in to tell us about his part in its journey:

I picked up the camera at a lakeside camp on the Greenland Ice Sheet from Sally Reid. It then travelled with me to Greenland’s second largest town, Sisimuit, by foot, canoe and a small hitch on a quad bike. In Sisimuit I joined a sailing boat bound north and explored the fjords and outlet glaciers surrounding Illullsiat and Ummannaq whilst carrying out glacio-oceanographic research with an international team of scientists and climbers. The camera came with me on two climbing trips. One on Ummannaq Island and the other up a 2280 m mountain – likely the highest in the area and to be aptly named the Greenlandic translation of ‘the peak of clearing clouds’. In September, Camera159 returned to Kangerlussuaq and back on to the Ice Sheet; now cold, and frozen whilst we over-wintered our instruments. Following this it headed South – to the Antarctic Peninsula, as part of a research project on Rutford Ice Stream. Here, I passed the camera on to a lad called Mike Stainer who was escorting Winnie the Pooh around on a guided tour in a large, red plane. I look forward to seeing the photos developed.

Neither can we! Thanks for the update Sam.

After 293 days in the wild, Camera 114 has returned home with 23 images from the West Coast of the USA.

Originally dropped by Kirsty S, who is clearly our most gifted dropper with an amazing percentage of her cameras coming home, the camera started life in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Thanks to Jenna W for returning the camera, and Melanie for helping it get home.

If you’re featured in any of the images, or recognise the locations, please comment on the camera page, so we can build up a story of its journey.

Matt V.T. has been handed Camera 159, which travelled from Greenland to the South Pole. He’s given us a little more background to the camera’s journey to date:

To update the story of this camera a little – Sam D. (if the surname is Doyle) passed the camera to Mike S. (Stainer) – one of this years wintering mechs at R.A.B.I.D (Rothera Area Base of Ice Drilling). This is a deep field depot site (78° 09′S 83° 53′W) supporting flying operations further South. He took a photo there and then took it back to Sky Blu (an blue ice runway deep field site 74° 09′S 71° 34′W) where he took a further photo and bought it back to Rothera. It was passed to Toddy who took it to the pole and it was then given to me on his return.

Matt told us about what he did with the camera too:

I have taken a couple of photos, one of our main building and one of a Skua chick during a monitoring survey of breeding Skua on the point. (photo attached taken by Keith Waddell, a base assistant, of the camera in use). I have now given it to Celine, who has just completed a year as meteorologist on base. She left Rothera this morning with the camera and is heading North to travel through Chile and Peru. With any luck – the camera should find its way back to you at some point – and it would be really good to see some of the photos on this well travelled camera!!

Thanks for the update Matt – and we’re looking forward to hearing from Celine.
You can see the complete history of the camera at the Camera 159 page.

Great news from Camera 159, it’s been to the South Pole!

The camera, which was created in Swansea, Wales back in Summer 2009, travelled to Greenland with Sally R, and was left at the local science base in Kangerlussuaq. We briefly heard about it possibly travelling further North in the July, but this week, we received a message from Paul T, who had the camera in Antarctica:

I was handed one of your cameras at a remote field camp called Sky-Blu at the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, whilst working for the British Antarctic Survey this summer. I took it with me on a project at the South Pole, and then returned with it to the British Base, Rothera. I was at the Pole working for the British Antarctic Survey on a GPS project. I work as a Field Assistant, and the other chap (goggles and green jacket) is Ian Potten, the pilot of the Twin Otter aircraft that took us there.

Paul sent us some photos from this trip to the Pole (the rest of which you can see on the camera page), and has since passed the camera on again:

I’ve handed it to a colleague who will take a couple of snaps then pass it on northwards. I took a couple of pics at the South Pole – apologies if there are a couple of spoiled pics, but it was -30c and my gloved fingers were awkward! I’d love to see the results of the developed film. Looks like this camera’s now been to the north and south ends of the earth.

This camera certainly holds the record for visiting the most extreme locations on our planet.
Thanks to Paul for getting in touch, and of course Sally and Sam for taking part in the project so far.

View the Camera 159 page for more images and the full update.

We’ve just had two cameras return home and the images have been posted – Camera 150, which travelled around the UK last year, and Camera 210 which made the journey from London to Australia and back. You can see both sets of images via the ‘Returned Images‘ section.

This brings us to 21 cameras which have returned, out of the current 265 cameras in almost 60 countries, which is just over a 12% return rate.
We’re approaching our 2nd birthday in April, when we’ll be doing a retrospective of the most interesting stories and journeys from the project to date.