When assigned with the theme of environment, I wanted to try and capture the lifestyles and settings of me and my friends. Nevertheless, this concept as an individual project is quite generic and predictable and I feel as if more imagination is required in order to make my work unique. When provided with the brief of ‘environment’ one of the first instincts is going to be the multiple environments of a social group. I don’t want to jump straight to this idea, as the process will be followed by a plethora of other students. My thinking process at this stage was conceptualizing ways in which that I could incorporate some kind of personal element or unique characteristic into this generic idea. I came up with the idea of utilizing disposable cameras. Everywhere I go, I take a disposable camera with me.  I really enjoy taking photographs with disposables and love the ‘old-school’ vintage aesthetic that they bring. I think that I love them so much due to the subconscious nostalgia they bring. When I was a child and technology was not quite as advanced, my family and I would always use disposable cameras. We would take them on holidays and vacations as they were cheap, easy to use and did the job. If I look through my house, I will find thousands of disposable photographs documenting my childhood  right from the day I was born. I love the physicality of them and how they will always be there, regardless of the advancing digital technology. As a result, I actually prefer using my disposable as oppose to the camera on my phone or canon. I came up with the idea of taking a photograph of my environment with a disposable camera before passing it on to a friend and instructing him or her to do the same. This process would be repeated until more than 10 people have produced images of their personal settings and environments. I like the process of this project, as it involves the participation of a small community and the documentation of multiple environments. It provides the viewer with a quick, sneaky insight into the life of multiple characters. This project takes advantage of the portable, compact and light nature of a disposable camera demonstrating how we can easily transfer images and memories between one another. When providing my friends with the camera, I will simply instruct them to take 3 photographs. This is the only guidance I will provide them. Doing this will ensure that they are not conscious of the brief and fabricating photographs that are not representational of their lifestyle. I want the photographers to produce work whilst unaware of its purpose.

My second idea also incorporates the use of a disposable camera but for a different purpose. For this project I would focus on tourism and travelling. In early April, I am travelling on a cruise around the Mediterranean, visiting dozens of cities around Europe. This includes locations such as Rome, Florence, Pisa, Athens, Pompeii, Monaco, Marseilles and Barcelona. Typically, disposable cameras were perfect for tourists, allowing them to carry small, lightweight cameras to capture their adventures that were inexpensive and temporary. They prevented the hassle of packing a chunky camera that could be easily damaged, also ideal for families and travelers in the late 20th century who could not afford professional cameras. Nevertheless, disposables have gone out of fashion, rarely used due to the introduction of smart phones and their ability to take great photos whilst maintaining the compact lightweight physicality shared by disposables. Although disposables are still sold in stores, their popularity is a shadow of its former self. I would use a disposable to capture the culture and individual atmospheres of each city, looking at landmarks, historical sites and famous locations.  This is known as Travel Photography. Travel photography is a genre of  photography that may involve the documentation of an area’s landscape, people, cultures, customs and history. The Photographic Society of America defines a travel photo as an image that expresses the feeling of a time and place, portrays a land, its people, or a culture in its natural state, and has no geographical limitations. Many travel photographers specialise in a particular aspect of photography such as travel portraits, landscape or documentary photography as well as shooting all aspects of travel. Alternatively, this can idea can be done without a disposable camera and then I can produce a larger quantity of work.