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.

Edvaldo wrote to us a few months back to tell us about an event he and his wife were planning:

I really appreciated your Disposable Memory Project and I would like to introduce you a similar project I and my wife Silvia are planning to run in Brazil.

We like the drift theory, where you keep yourself in a way that doesn’t have plan or maps but has borders and limits and follow the “natural” way, we have resolved to allow a camera to do it. We will have a Photograph event called “Paraty em Foco” (http://www.paratyemfoco.com) this is the biggest one in Brazil and we are going to use this opportunity to test this “camera drift”. The idea is to give cameras (disposable ones) to one person in the beginning of the day and request to pass to others during the day and at the end return to one specific place where we can get, like your project.

That was back in July, and last week Edvaldo wrote again to tell us how things went:

During this event we finally launched the Crônicas Visuais project (http://cronicasvisuais.org/). We started with 2 cameras, one fixed in a seat in the main place in Paraty (Praça da Matriz) and the second one made small “trip” cross the city.

Unfortunately the first one was robbed in the first day, we took some pictures and published in the blog. After it we took more care about the cameras. The first trip was made by a teenager that lives in the non touristic portion of the city, Betina shows us the day by day images. The second trip was very short, just in the best ice-cream shop in the city during the “international day of ice cream”, at least it was in Paraty and we saw a large line of students waiting for free ice cream, was funny to see the images at the same level of them, very short close to the tables.

After it, we gave a camera to the a volunteer in the asylum for older, we just posted it today in the site. Very emotional pictures showing us how these old people live there and the conditions they have.

We tried other camera in the place (praça da matriz), it was almost robbed again,, but this time we were able to recover it. This film was nice pictures from famous photographers … very funny. the last one made a trip in the hands of one visitor.

If you’re a Portuguese speaker, you can read much more about the event at http://cronicasvisuais.org/. We’ll also be adding the two cameras which we sent to Edvaldo from our project to the site in the coming days, and fingers crossed we’ll hear back from them soon.

We’ve had an email from Matt Foote, of our very first camera to return home, telling us about an exhibition he’s put together after being involved in our project:

Having been directly inspired by the Disposable Memory Project, I am hanging a show of disposable camera photos at the September art show at the Gallery At The End Of The World.
Appropriate, as that is the gallery where I received my first DMP camera, which subsequently became the very first one to return home.

This show, specifically, was done using the very cheapest, flimsiest, “Dollar Store” cameras that I could find. No flash, no fancy gadgets. They’re so cheap, they’re housed in paperboard packaging instead of plastic. And the photo quality is generally just awful– murky and dodgy, almost like a pinhole camera. But with the right framing and light-oriented composition, they can produce beautiful, if rough, images.

We totally agree, the images from the cameras are wonderful and have a beautiful quality to them. If you’re in the Altadena area of California, do try and get to Matt’s show. He’ll also be releasing another camera for us there.

For the exhibit, I’m also going to launch a new camera by having the bag attached to my wall. We’ll see who has the stones to unpin the camera bag from the exhibition wall and walk away with it…

Contact us or the Gallery for more details on the show http://www.galleryattheendoftheworld.com

Sally R. has four our of cameras, and is today starting her journey to Greenland to spend a few weeks out on the ice sheets doing hydrological research. We’re going to be following her journey as far as possible, and letting you know about the cameras which get handed out.

Sally says:

I have attached a Google Earth image of our trip, we are being picked up in Kangerlussuaq, and are camping out in the middle of the white bit next to a blue bit :)

We’ve added the cameras all starting in Swansea today so you can follow the journey, and as we know more about each one, we’ll post them to the site.

Camera 159
Camera 160
Camera 161
Camera 162

You can also keep track on the blog and twitter.

Monika A. has emailed to tell us a bit more about her Camera 93, which later this week will be making the mammoth journey to an Everest Basecamp in Nepal. We asked her about the trip she is making.

The Project: So where is the camera currently?

Monika A: Burgdorf near Hanover, Germany

DMP: And why are you going to Everest?

Monika: Generally I am very interested in foreign countries, their landscape and the people who live there. That’s why I love to travel.
Nepal – and especially the himalayas – is a destination that on the one hand I always wanted to visit – on the other hand I wasn’t sure if I would ever manage to get there.

When Jon and Chris (my significant other) decided to organize a trek to Everest Base Camp in Nepal as a photography and videography workshop it was clear for me that this would my opportunity to be part of a unique experience.

Did I mention that I am very passionate about photography? This journey is a great chance to combine both hobbies as the trek will offer the environment to take all kinds (and lots!!) of photographs. I am really looking forward to receiving many many new impressions, which may also push my photography to a new level.

DMP: How can we follow your journey?

Monika: You can get trek updates (on a probably daily basis) on http://netvibes.com/everesttrek

DMP: We’ll be following you closely, and best of luck!

Monika: Thanks – keep your fingers crossed that I don’t get altitude sick :-)

You can read more about the project at http://www.everesttrek2009.com/ and of course, we’ll be charting its progress on our own Camera 93 page.

Good luck to Monika and the rest of the team. This may be our most amazing camera drop yet!

Tim from I left this here for you to read sent us a link to this project in Canada – Photochaining, where participants are asked to leave digital memory cards around, in the hope they’ll be picked up and passed on.

The great thing about this medium is that the people who find the cards can immediately post an image from the card showing the images and the card’s progress as it travels, rather than our more laid back ‘fingers crossed with patience’ approach!

It is so easy to take part in, so go over and have a read, buy yourself a memory card, and get snapping! (Although don’t forget to get involved in our project too!)

Internal Mail, originally uploaded by webponce.

Toying around with a new idea today.

Internal Mail (http://internalmail.foundacam.com) is an offshoot of the Disposable Memory Project, where if you work in an office or company which uses internal mail, you can use the system to send a camera around your organisation.

Instructions are on the site, but maybe it might create some interesting photos, and hopefully one a day!

Legal Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for you getting told off for abusing internal resources or something :)

Meandering Camera, originally uploaded by webponce.

I received my very own disposable camera this morning. Alvin over at MeanderingCamera.com is running a project “inspired by” ours, and already has some great images back.

This being the first time I’ve received a camera to do with what I please myself, I’ve started feeling the weird sense of ‘ooh, where to take it’, and more interestingly, ‘i don’t want to give it away! what if it gets lost?’. I’m sorry if I’ve put you through this too! ;)

Check out his site, and say hello from the DMP.

Location of Disposable Memory Project camera #2, originally uploaded by Richard Call.

Richard has posted a handful of images of his two camera drops in Nashville, which you can see now in our flickr group tagged with Camera 33, and Camera 34. Thanks for those, not to mention the lovely self-portrait!

Our Chamonix camera, Camera 35, apparently shared the resort with mini-celeb Kylie Minogue. Joanna D says:

Kylie was there at the same time as us, maybe she picked it up?

So not only is it our highest camera to date, but may also fall into the hands of the pop starlet. To be featured in Hello! magazine, perhaps?

Also, Camera 25, which started its life in London, is now very possibly in Argentina, having already been passed on by Isabel in San Fran. Are you the lucky recipient? Write in and let us know.

Update: Richard is keeping track of his cameras at his blog also: http://blog.richardcall.net/projects/disposable-memory-project/

I found another really nice project this morning, where Nat Friedman and friends handed out a whole load of disposable cameras to the kids in the poorest areas of Rio. The images captured are fascinating and moving, as well as just great pics.

The return rate was pretty good; many of the kids were waiting in the street from 7am to noon for us to pick up their cameras. We got 26 back out of maybe 32 we handed out. This amounted to 632 photos. Many of them are excellent, especially for someone who’s probably never used a camera before, and with a cheap disposable. Some are sad, some are funny.

You can read the full story at http://nat.org/rocinha/