Sunday, November 16, 2014

Kodak Single Use Camera + Street Photo


Some time in mid October, I bought this Kodak single-use camera a.k.a. disposable camera at a neighborhood photo lab for $15.90SGD. I got an interesting and fun idea about using this type of camera, which I would not talk about it yet on this blog today. What I want is to share with you readers some of the "I-considered-good" street photographs I took using this camera. The photos will be posted here on this blog every Sunday morning 9:00AM (SGT).

Not in black and white but in color. So make the jump to see the first photo post.

Below is a short video on un-boxing the package box. Pardon for the windy noise in the background which was caused by electric fan.





The camera has a limited specifications. With an aperture of f/12 and shutter speed of 1/100 second and loaded with an ISO 800 color negative film, shooter is able to use it under super low light condition with its built-in flash. With my personal shooting experience, I've had taken street photos under overcast weather condition and yes I turned on the flash light to fire, and I'm really amazed at the results. Well not every shot was taken with flashlight.

With such fixated camera settings of f/12 at 1/100 second, it is quite equivalent to the Sunny 16 Rule of f/16 at 1/250 second with ISO 400 film speed. In order to compensate for certain exposures especially under super low light condition, Kodak loaded a high speed color negative film along with a built-in flash.

Now talking about the ISO 800 color negative, I'm not too sure if Kodak had ever sold such high speed film but I do like the colors. I wanted to try shooting at night on the street but I didn't. Will try it next time to see what results it can produce. OK enough saying, here's the first photo to kick off.


I was walking along Orchard Road and stopped at the road junction waiting to cross when I spotted this lady with a huge black hat right opposite. Green man sign lights on and huge crowd of pedestrians on both sides started to cross the road. My eyes were fixated on her. Just as she walked past me, I turned and took a quick snap.

After I got back the negatives from the photo lab and noticed there was this guy with a silver roller luggage on the left side of the photo. I couldn't figure out what was inside that luggage, and how it would be related to the big black hat. After much reviews for the past 2 weeks of editing, I still like this picture and finally came to notice the colors that played an important role in it, not just about the main subject and composition. No doubt they are just as important but in this street photo, the RED color speaks out loud.

The red color on the main subject's T-shirts, the red cab, the red stripe on the public bus, red color trouser a little girl wore on the right edge of the photo and a person carried a red haversack, just right behind the big black hat.

BLACK speaks out too. The big black hat of course, followed by the black top on the young lady on the foreground and the person behind the black hat, the guy with the black havesack on the left side, and the shaded black windows on the public bus and the building on the background.

There are other colors like green from the tree leaves and builidng wibdows. Grey from the road and the checked shirts. But none speaks out as loud as the color RED and BLACK.

Well that was what I have discovered and it wasn't planned out when I took that shot. My main focus was locked on to that big black hat. It was pure luck. Yeah I was lucky at that very moment when things fell into place. This is one of the great challenges of doing street photography which I love it so much.

Sometimes it's not about finding answers to feed my curiosities and creativity, but to observe and discover things in life on the streets. Leaving some spaces for open interpretations is good. Be it provocative or not, viewers are also challenged to see what they see in the photographs. That, to me, is the creative process of photography, in general.

So, I would just leave this street photo for open interpretations to you readers/viewers. It'd be great to know what are your interpretations. Do leave a comment below. I really do appreciate that you share.

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