Taking Photos With Disposable Camera

BY FARHIRA FARUDIN

In this digital era, every photo we shoot is determined by its flawlessness. It's quite unusual to find any photographer who still shoots with film camera, because why would they? Digital cameras provide everything they need to take a capture a great photo, and there's Photoshop to push the limits when it comes to achieving the perfect photo. Even we don't need expensive professional cameras to capture perfect moments, everyone has a smart phone that include a camera with high megapixels. And to add the never-ending advanced technology in this modern world, every photo can be edited within a click using free (or paid) apps on App Store or Google Play Store.

And because everyone is so eager to edit their vacation photos or add quirky filters to their selfies, most photos taken today feels it has lost its authenticity. It's nice to see how effortlessly easy for us to edit our photos these days, whether to make our eyes appear bigger or to crop out any unsolicited distortion in panorama photos, the originality of today's photos could be taken away easily thanks to countless photo editing apps in our phones or digital cameras. 

In order to escape myself just for a little while from modern day cameras such as DSLR, I decided to purchase a disposable camera. Disposable camera is usually can be bought at the cheapest price, and because of the word 'disposable', it means right after you get your films developed, you could no longer use the camera. Most of these cameras allows you to take 27 photos (or more) and the effect is what captures my attention in the first place.

The aftermath of the photos taken with disposable cameras are simply nostalgic and aesthetically pleasing - something that digital cameras can rarely capture without the help of filters and numerous editing on Photoshop. Disposable cameras are so special, because you will constantly remind yourself to use it wisely and only take moments that are truly precious, instead of taking countless futile photos and delete most of them soon after. 

The negative side of using disposable camera is, unlike digital cameras, you aren't allowed to see the outcome of your photos until you develop the films. This means if you had unknowingly taken a blurry photo or your finger accidentally covered the lens, you have to accept the photo once its developed. No retouching. No undo button. In my first attempt of using disposable camera, I realized I had taken lots of excessively blurry and grainy photos, as well as photos that are underexposed. Hence, I believe disposable cameras are made exclusively for you to capture the right moments, and not every moment happening in front of you, because then you'd be wasting your exposures.