The Faux Disposable Camera That's Helping Me Actually Take Social Photos
This durable plastic camera is like a disposable, but you can download all your photos at the end of the night, and it's gone a long way in helping me get over the hurdle of actually recording memories.
Published November 20, 2024
Books Mentioned
The Memory Illusion by Dr. Julia Shaw
On Photography by Susan Sontag
The Social Photo by Nathan Jurgenson
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
My twin sister and I are in the same boat. Neither of us have many photos from our twenties. Don't get me wrong; I have thousands upon thousands of pictures of landscapes, trips, desk setups, items, homes, someday-useful-maybe screenshots—but practically none of myself or social occasions. We've figured out some of the factors at play:
- In college, events had built-in photo time (unspoken, perhaps) in which everyone just rearranged in a dozen configurations for maybe twenty minutes. You'd pull out the Nikon, use it for a while, then tuck it into someone's room (honor system, y'all, so we didn't worry about stealing) before starting to drink. When an occasion isn't structured like that, it's harder to carve out.
- We are both so worried about being perceived as phone-addicted narcissists (idk) that we've pivoted hard in the other direction; when everyone's bemoaning how everything nowadays is content and Gen Z selfies, well. Not sure what the best balance is. Probably to capture anyway and stop worrying so much.
- We're usually the photographers—her in portrait mode, me in aesthetic travel pics. (All her pictures are aesthetic.) And then we want the candids, not the posed, so the offer to return the favor doesn't hit the same when it's not an instinct. That being said, I love getting shots of other people to pass along as a memory.
- I may be less put-together when we're running to social occasions, maybe? So I'm pickier about the photos that make it to the Internet.
- For me, at least: I now have an Instagram following made up of lots of people I don't know, many of whom follow me for book updates and my professional work. So there's more incentive for me to keep my social life private on social media, and to make sure my editors don't think I'm a floozy. (I'm in lifestyle, so I'm sure they'd say more power to me; still, I'm more careful about implying I'm going wild especially when on deadline.)
So we're both aware that a lot of the muscle memory—the instinct to capture most occasions—has shriveled. We'll go to a wonderful, formal wedding with friends and realize after that we didn't get a single picture (or we got a single picture we all hated.) Or realize the last time we took a picture together was 2021. It's funny, both being very photography-oriented people, to realize the gap in the recorded volume.
My favorite pictures of myself are from 2019, and thus majorly out of date; since then, I've dyed my hair, changed my body composition, and made a lot of memories of which there is no record beyond my imperfect recall. (I have had this exact crisis over journaling too.)
In some ways, I think carrying a camera can help dilute the worries about being glued to our phones and not being in the moment (or the perception of such), because the camera serves a single purpose versus funneling into a potential time-sucking scroll machine that degrades the quality of your conversation. (Oh.)
That being said, we're both photographers so we're precious about our gadgets. My Canon G7x has been dragged to hell and back (translation: was in my beach bag on a windy day and has had a stuck lens for 3+ years which makes a ch-ch-ch-ch sound every time you power it on) but I still don't cart it around as regularly as I should. Hannah prefers a bulky Nikon for most of her intentional shots. Not exactly party material. Disposable cameras are expensive and pile up. I have a whole stack of them from college I'm afraid to develop but that's a whole 'nother psychological quirk to unpack; I like the idea that there is a Schrödinger's Cat, still-discoverable archive of memories.
Then my older sister introduced us to the concept of the CampSnap.
What's the CampSnap?
You might have seen the many targeted social media ads. The CampSnap walks and talks like a disposable camera. It's a similar size and build, made of pretty durable plastic. But you just plug it into your computer at the end of the night to download the photos.
My sister bought it for her toddlers, who are five and two respectively. They could take photos, be off screens (i.e. the phone is another temptation entirely), and it was cheap enough for its use that she didn't really have to worry about the way they threw it around.
Cue my brainstorming. Since drunk people are basically toddlers, wouldn't this would be a great going-out camera?
The Hottest Accessory in Haleiwa? The Nights We Won't Forget
When I showed up back in town after buying this camera, I toted it to a backyard party—and immediately ran into my best friend here, who'd bought the exact same camera in the same exact color. (Sometimes, we twin.) She'd had the same logic, the same slightly-out-of-character impulse buy. And it really does reduce the perceive burden of capturing an evening or a get-together without feeling invasive.
Later, at Halloween, another friend of ours had the same camera in a different color. It's spreading. It's relatively low-cost for what it is, convenient versus film, and it's easy to retrieve each photo. What's not to love?
It does get me to actually take photos at gatherings. It fits in my pocket, which is crucial. I have put it on a crowded bar table and not worried about spills or theft or any of those bits, so I appreciate that it's relatively under-the-radar and tough. It gets me to actually record more, and I am deeply grateful for that since being out of the college habit. It does beep when turning on/off and when taking photos, so not best for those who'll get embarrassed by the noise (but great in a loud occasion like a concert or party.) It comes in many colors, and you'll note that it is screen-free, so you won't know what the photo looks like until you plug it into your computer later.
One day, I'll look back very Perks of Being a Wallflower-esque and remember these nights in my twenties: piling into the back of a truck bed on a Friday night on the North Shore of O'ahu, decked out in themed garb for a party, a little drunk and woozy under the stars. Dancing to the DJ at Jorge's (if the music's actually good that night) and maybe hopping in the ocean after. I'm especially aware of its impermanence because many of my friends here are military service members coming in on their final months on the island before shipping out; the landscape, socially, even by mid-year will be very different. I will know an entirely different set of people. Hawai'i's a place you can only handle living in if you are used to (or at least survive) saying goodbye frequently to transients, visitors, and friends.
I used to say when I first moved to O'ahu that one of my most visceral memories of coming-of-age on this island would be waking up at 7 a.m. so hungover to the sound of a rooster. But now I at least have photo evidence.
“I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all become somebody’s mom or dad. But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I can see it. This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you’re listening to that song, and that drive with the people who you love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.”
Notes on Photo Quality
Personally, I don't love the included filter. It gives everything a green cast that I try to correct in post if I can by layering another filter. Supposedly, you can download a file for another filter, but I haven't quite figured it out. My friend's photos and mine look different so we're trying to figure out what's what. The software is simple, but not the most clear, and I do worry about accidentally "bricking" my camera. It's not quite the same as a disposable, as seen below.
The classic disposable is bluer. The regular camera is clearer. Overall, the CampSnap quality isn't my favorite ever, but it's totally worth the sacrifice for me just to at least get some records down.
The cord is finicky. When I use one that wasn't the one provided, it takes forever for the camera to connect to my computer.
But to get the photos, you just wait for CAMPSNAP to pop up in Finder (on a Mac, like my computer) and drag over the files. Delete at your leisure or keep them on the camera. I think I have 100+ photos and Kelsey has 350+, but neither of us have run out of storage or even recharged our cameras yet—sothe endurance is incredible.
The camera works for certain settings best, like nighttime. The flash keeps it neutral enough shade-wise if you're dealing with complete darkness. My favorite photos were taken in nightclubs in Playa Riviera, Mexico and Paris, France, both of which were slightly smoky, which added some great texture to the shot. Every photo will have quite a lot of grain in it too.
The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media by Nathan Jurgenson
Book: The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media by Nathan Jurgenson
Release Date: April 30, 2019
Publisher: Verso
Format: Hardcover
Source: Bought
"Mr. Jurgenson makes a first sortie toward a new understanding of the photograph, wherein artistry or documentary intent have given way to communication and circulation. Like Susan Sontag's On Photography, to which it self-consciously responds, The Social Photo is slim, hard-bitten and picture-free." - New York Times
A set of bold theoretical reflections on how the social photo has remade our world.
With the rise of the smart phone and social media, cameras have become ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every aspect of social life. The glowing camera screen is the lens through which many of us seek to communicate our experience. But our thinking about photography has been slow to catch-up; this major fixture of everyday life is still often treated in the terms of art or journalism.
In The Social Photo, social theorist Nathan Jurgenson develops bold new ways of understanding photography in the age of social media and the new kinds of images that have emerged: the selfie, the faux-vintage photo, the self-destructing image, the food photo. Jurgenson shows how these devices and platforms have remade the world and our understanding of ourselves within it.
The Social Photo makes a lot of good points about the self-consciousness of a photo taken for the social audience. There's a higher volume, of course, in the photos you might share online versus would have had to painstakingly develop in the early days. He basically argues that our focus has shifted on the quality of the image to the implied messaging of a higher quantity of images; in fact, we actually perceive lower quality photos as being more communicative. They feel slightly more "real." (My answer: it depends, but the muscle memory bit in combination with this idea are part of why the CampSnap appeals to me so much!)
It's a bit of a dramatic volume, but it drives its point home through a lot of meandering conversation that might spark your interest. (If you can't stand philosophy that gets too abstract/unfocused, it may not be for you.) I enjoyed the connections I made between modern topics I've been mulling over and the types of arguments Jurgenson surfaced in his meditation on the format. He also tries to debunk loneliness/disconnect arguments like those in Alone Together by Sherry Turkle, which tries to argue that smartphones have us each drifting further apart. (You can deep dive on this topic through Irresistible by Adam Alter, which is a fair read.)
Right now, a lot of people will post cheeky comparisons of how different generations diverge in the photos they share. The alt, Dimes Square crowd and Gen Z-ers love a 0.5 zoom lens. The photo dump is curated in the attempt to seem effortless. Millennials are more sincere in their capture, and therefore more "cringe." The very format of the photo impacts its reception, and the styles are easy to tell apart online. And people are buying worse quality cameras for that vintage feel—with brands like Kickback and Urban Outfitters capitalizing on the nostalgia.
It's not a new concept to adjust your photography for the audience, per se. In my studio art education, I took Photo I with a professor who absolutely loathed everything I submitted, but a lot of our conversations in critique sessions revolved around audience and eye (as well as discussions in Art Since 1945, another core class.) It's the same concept as in journalism, or in book publishing submission strategy: you adjust your voice—or in this case, your visual style—for the performance to your audience.
It's an imperfect book about an imperfect medium, but I liked it. I'd maybe library it and see if his style is up your alley.
The Gallery So Far
Do I think it's the most flattering camera? No. But it's "for the mems."
