I am not hungry.

I’ve been slowly discovering something this last few months. I just love to create and share images.

Success would obviously be lovely, but only on my own terms. Every image I share made me happy in some way, esoteric or not, and that’s what I love. Artistic direction is to the conscientious image creator as peer pressure is to a lonely teenager. You may well adopt a direction, but unless it comes to you instinctively, it’s not yours. I admire many amazing photographers (and even emulate what I perceive as their style), but trying to walk in their footprints immediately invalidates anything that I could aspire to. I embrace my love of creating images on any platform, and hopefully at least one other person will empathise with that love and enjoy the things I create. If they don’t, that doesn’t decrease my love of it; just decreases the audience. That’s what I love about making images, or art in general, I suppose. The size of the audience is quite irrelevant – it’s only the passion that truly matters (unless you’ve not eaten for days).

Excuse the introspection; I’ve been trying to find where I fit in the universe with a camera, and I think I may have found it.

Finished another BlacKeys roll. That took ages, but was nice to find things I’d forgotten about at the start. Still got another Foxy roll to finish, but I’m holding off because of how disappointed I was with the last one.

More BlacKeys 44. Weaker roll, but I was just snapping. Leave me alone, I’m not on trial here.

That micro scooter made me happy. Like there was some kid in school doing important work on Christmas day. Lovely

I don’t really like the results from this at all. Colours seem dull (though I do understand the dull colours in subject matter have something to do with that in places!) and the “narrow focal plane” seems random and has really spoiled a couple of these photos. Not amused.

Another post, another different film in Hipstamatic Disposable. Entering the fifth day of this app being the default camera app on my phone, I’m finding strange things. Firstly, I’m excited about hitting the end of a roll of film so I can see what came out and what didn’t. Secondly, I’m really getting into framing. Making sure the preview is absolutely as I want it before committing to the exposure. This sounds fundamentally obvious, but it’s so easy and cheap to absent-mindedly point and shoot even a DSLR that you just do it. You can easily marginally miss a great photo because you weren’t concentrating or you were rushing. Every time I “release” the “shutter” in Hipstamatic Disposable, there’s a little wave of excitement as I wonder how that shot will come out and I know the framing is the very best it can be because I poured over it. In today’s world of fast cars and instant previews, I don’t get that any more. It’s an unexpected, welcomed by-product.

So far, BlacKeys is my favourite style of film. I think black and white suits mobile phone cameras anyway, as you don’t get that horrible purple noise in low light – you just get that delightful haze of grain that I love.

Next up, I’ll be trying Foxy X69, which is described as “Hot as the day is long” with “shallow depth of field” and “scanned film border”. The colours in the previews look really vibrant without being over-saturated, so I’m excited to see what this can pull off in the delightful, grey winter we’re having. I’ll also probably keep a BlacKeys running for low light and other such black-and-white moments. Since you asked.

First run with the D-Lite film on Hipstamatic Disposable.

Liked: the washed colours, skies and blues look excellent.
Disliked: fake light leaks look like the same shape in different positions, borders (black is too heavy for such washed colours).

In the last couple of days, the guys who make Hipstamatic released a new app designed to test people’s investment in retro to its absolute limit. It has confused and angered some, simultaneously delighting others. The confused, angry amongst us are almost certainly lacking knowledge (isn’t this always the way?).

The fundamental premise of Hipstamatic Disposable is to act like roll film, in that you get no preview and no ability to review your images until you’re done shooting a “roll”. A roll is 24 exposures.

Now here’s where people get angry. There are two types of free film (this is, as far as I can tell, a different type of filter; maybe border, too. I haven’t got that far yet), three if you log in using Facebook. When you want to shoot some photographs, you either pick a new “roll” from what you have available, or pick a project that’s already been started. The interface suggests that you can’t have two active instances of one type of roll.

If that’s not enough for you, Synthetic are willing to test just how vintage you really are. They also offer three different types of premium camera. 69p gets you nine cameras, each with 24 exposures ((69 / 9) / 24 = 0.3p per exposure), 36 for £1.49 (0.17p per exposure) or 99 for £2.99 (0.12p per exposure).

Divide numbers by other numbers for long enough and they all seem small, but in a world of micro transactions and App Stores, I think this is a pricing model that could work for Synthetic. The problem that I see is people don’t seem to understand it. There are too many numbers, and the more numbers you say at people, the more scared and confused they seem to get. I read a review yesterday in which the language really inflated my perception of the price, and I read an App Store review (the new YouTube comments) earlier of a poor individual who thought that you paid 69p for 9 exposures. Once I sat down and read the numbers for myself, though, it became clear that this is actually quite a reasonably priced app. Still much cheaper than an actual disposable camera.

Personally, I will probably work my way through all the types of film to see which I prefer, then stick to it. I don’t see that this app is a replacement for apps like Hipstamatic (or whatever camera app you use). It’s more the sort of thing you’d want to replace a disposable camera. You’re probably not too bothered about how the photos will turn out, as long as something turns out. You don’t need to review every shot you take – you just want to fire off a few rolls then look at them later. This is actually quite similar to the direction I’m taking with my DSLR. I don’t usually look at my photos until I get home anyway (unless I’m on a boring train or I’m trying to get the exposure of something just right) because I think there’s a lot to be said for an imperfect image. It’s something that digital has definitely taken away, and I appreciate Synthetic’s mindset and steps to put it back. I hope it works out for them – I’ve grown very fond of their camera apps (in certain configurations. Some of their stuff is quite horrible).

You can see for yourself whether you like the results. I kinda hate the huge borders that these apps add. I love that Instagram lets you disable them, but it seems to be the only app of its ilk that does. It’s worth mentioning that you can play with the intensity of the applied effect, but all of these were taken with the slider in the middle (where it defaulted to). Nevertheless, it’s free and well worth checking out, in my opinion.

I put that photo of the upside-down tights display on Instagram this week and one person liked it. I don’t put things on there for the likes, but I was sure people would like that. Weird how that happens. I have a similar thing with Twitter at least once a day.