Whoever it was that first had the idea of making cameras disposable was a genius. Think about it. Before whoever it was that made cameras disposable, made cameras disposable, a photographer was forced to marry the “throwaway” piece of his or her kit – the film – with something that cost a minimum of two hundred quid. Or buy a cheapie camera that was so poorly made it was as likely to tear the film to pieces as break halfway through its first real.
When they made cameras disposable, they obviated the need to look after your kit, which meant you could either take cameras places you’d never taken them before (gigs, for example) or lose/break them without caring. After having made cameras disposable pro photographers could take test reels in the most unlikely places without lugging a suitcase of gear around with them. Not even the Polaroid fit into a pocket without some creative cramming: with cameras disposable, you could have one in each pocket and another one in your hand.
So what? These days digital has made all cameras disposable. The cheap availability of reasonably high-performance digital image capture has turned even top-notch standard SLR cameras disposable. Why waste money on film when you can buy a memory card that holds 10,000 shots for less than 20 quid?
Anyone who remembers Paul Simon (and who, then, must be old enough to remember when they first made cameras disposable) ought to remember the song “Kodachrome”, in which Mr Simon claimed that “everything looks worse in black and white”. Plainly untrue, as 20 years’ worth of Vogue magazine covers will testify. Similarly untrue is the idea that, just because digital made all non-digital cameras disposable, digital is somehow better than standard film. Everything does not look worse in 35mm. Some things look a whole lot better.
Search for “cameras disposable” on the good old Internet and you’re as likely to find art galleries as pages selling you disposable cameras. Why? Because the idea of making cameras disposable has captivated photographers and artists of all stripes for a very long time. A picture is a distilled moment in time. Pictures from cameras disposable after use become visual haiku: their evanescence doubled by the fact that those cameras disposable after one use had no gadgets, no fancy lenses – no mediation between photographer and subject. When you look at photographs taken on cameras disposable, you find the purest example of the adage “the camera never lies”. Cameras disposable to the user can’t. They don’t have the technology. So a whole cult has grown up around them and their images – a cult that even the advent of affordable digital cameras can’t take away.
