I've been a fan and follower of Indisposible Concept on Instagram for a long time now after Chloe first introduced them to me. If you're not familiar with Indisposible Concept it's a community borne out of a film inspired project to collect and host film photography from all over the globe and was first established in 2012. Initially limited to just disposable cameras the project was less about fine art photography and more about recording experiences; what are you doing in your life, captured with the simplicity and charm of point and shoot disposable cameras. However they have since branched out and began to accept rolls of film shot in any kind of camera, but with the same approach still applied. You can check out more detailed info about them by clicking this line of text and exploring their website further. In January this year they re-introduced 'the element of surprise' harking back to their early days of collecting disposable cameras from people, developing them themselves and posting the results. You can check out the IG announcement here. This was a project that really resonated with me mainly because I just really like disposable cameras! And I don't need much of an excuse to use them for something... But also because the idea of just shooting a bunch of photos capturing moments rather than compositions and then handing it over to a international platform to host the results without me seeing them first felt really appealing, and a way to contribute meaningfully to the community. I picked a disposable AGFA camera whilst out shopping one day as my choice to contribute and set about taking it with me on a couple of trips around February.
It travelled with me to see Nervus play at Underground in Camden, to NQ64, a retro games arcade and bar in Birmingham, and on weekends with Chloe or just generally around the house. I took a different approach to using it than I would normally when shooting film. Instead of trying to present each shot as a composition, I embraced Indisposible Concept's ethos more and just took pictures of moments, snapshots of whatever was happening around me. It was an opportunity to do something different for me and I felt less restricted, less confined and I enjoyed it.
It took some time, thanks to international postage, and to some pesky virus keeping everyone indoors or whatever, but my gallery has finally gone live on the Indisposible Concept website. I won't share loads of my shots in this post, instead go and check out my gallery on their website, or go check out the first post of it on Instagram! It would have been easy for me to just pick a roll of film, shoot it and send them the photos before now, but 'the element of surprise' project had more of an edge to it; leaving the development, curation and posting of the pics up to somebody else, and I'm really happy with how the photos worked out. I had fun with it too, so will definitely be contributing again in the future, just as soon as we can all get out and start taking pictures safely again!
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