Pim writes:
I sent a number of disposable cameras to a few people – children and farmers – at a small village in Lesotho, Southern Africa and asked them to take pictures of their life. What returned are some truly amazing pictures, un-mediated by the professional photographer’s eye.I posted a number of them here, you might find them interesting. They are really amazing, especially considering they were taken by a throw-away Kodak, by folks who mostly had never even touched a camera before.
We are doing this as part of our Menu for Hope, the fourth annual fundraising raffle run by me and a whole bunch of food blogging friends to raise funds for the UN World Food Program – last year’s campaign did over $60K in two weeks. This year’s plan is to support the school lunch program in Lesotho, where the WFP not only feed the kids but is pushing a new initiative to buy from local farmers to support the program. We help feed the kids, which keeps them in school, and also support their parents and community farming.
I remain ga-ga over the quality of pictures taken by those with no training. Keep these in mind the next time you try to convince yourself you need that $2,000 DSLR.
Faces from Lesotho [ChezPim.com]
There is no machine that will make art.
Heyyyyy… isn’t it your job to convince us we need that $2,000 DSLR?
I know film is a bit oldskool, but I spend 6 months on a project where I pulled apart disposable cameras and removed and replace the used canisters with fresh rolls of film.
To do this I needed a bulk-winder and an assortment of not too butched but empty canisters – BUT they must be from disposable’s of the same kind as they have a little cog on spool.
The fun came when I applied lots of vaseline or scratched the hell out of the lenses. Some very fun effects -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/raromachine/150111858/
Pays to get friendly with the person at the photolab – I got a few kilograms of old film spools for nix!
Also – beware of the cameras with flashes – once you get the housings off there are some metal parts which are connected to the thing that stores the charge for the flash. yeow!