Here are some animations from my most recent disposables.

Winding film along on a train is so loud, but I had to take pictures of this beautiful light coming in.

So sunny.

Blossom is so nice.

Prints taking up too much space? Old compositions eyeing you up from an overflowing drawer? Why not try cutting them up and turning them into a nice new work of art?

What you’ll need: A selection of prints, scissors, glue, and possibly some blu-tack.

Step 1: First of all you’ll need to pick out a good picture to use as your background. I looked through some landscape shots and chose a nice picture of Big Ben surrounded by a bright blue sky.

Step 2: Next, find the other bits that you’re going to stick on, and cut them out. You could use multiple images of the same subject (like I have), you could work from a theme like body parts or flowers, or you could be more spontaneous and erratic in your selection and just see what your final image turns into. Here I’ve chosen a series of pictures of a Cornetto.

Step 3: Here’s the fun part! Arrange your various bits and pieces onto your background, using blu-tack if you wish to temporarily affix them, and watch your masterpiece unfold.

Happy collaging!

I got my Lomo Oktomat for Christmas in 2009 and snapped away during the holiday. I thought it would be a great camera to have because you would technically be getting more photos, as each frame contains the 8 mini photos that make up one picture. I thought the design was cute too. I loved the bright red of the main body and the colourful bits around the lenses.

My first thought was that it would be a great camera to mace funny faces at, because it would record the movement, so this photo was made:

I love the way it came out so dark.

The main great thing about the Lomo Oktomat is the fluidity it allows you in your photo-taking. Any movement is captured perfectly, so you can get great shots of fast-moving subjects, such as pets or vehicles. It brings a certain livelihood to the images to see a sequence of action captured, and then of course you can make them into nifty little animations, like so:

(I used PicSlice and Iaza to make these)

Here are the shots from my experimental first Okto roll.

Unfortunately I only managed to get this one roll out of it before it stopped working. I’m not sure why, but future rolls would come out completely blank. I figured that light must be coming in somewhere and exposing the film. It’s a real shame because I loved the camera a lot, but I’ve heard a lot of Lomo Oktomat owners saying that their Oktomat broke, so perhaps it’s time for Lomo to make a sturdier and more reliable Oktomat 2? I’m sure it would be a welcome and celebrated improvement. For now though, I’ll stick with the Disderi Robot 3 for all my multi-lense needs (I do quite fancy an action sampler though).

My first camera was a big blue Fisher Price camera when I was four years old, in 1995. I was given it to record my trip to Florida with my Dad and Grandma. I don’t remember the holiday very much, aside from becoming completely enamored with Froot Loops, but fortunately I have the few pictures I took to act as memories.

I vaguely remember Sea World (I got myself a nice cuddly toy killer whale), and I have an extremely fuzzy memory of the ET ride.

A month after the holiday, my dad was dead, and analogue photographs became an integral part of my memories of him, tying them together like visual threads.

In any case, cameras had been a firmly embedded part of my early life. As expected, my family recorded everything and now I can look back on the dated furniture and terrible haircuts with a wistful sort of joy.

I even had a posh baby shot done:

I now present you with a progression of my growth from pink-faced baby to grump-filled adult:

I always very much enjoyed snapping away with carefree abandon, and as anticipated, I have grown into quite the photography-obsessed adult, occasionally ridiculed for the sheer amount of plastic cameras bulging in my bag at any one time.

Disappointed with an abundance of rubbish prints of shots that went wrong? Building up a shelf full of photographic embarrassment? Never fear, here’s a way to make use of those sad photos.

As a poor unemployed artist with an expensive analogue photo habit, every bad shot reminds me of the neat little hole it’s making in my wallet, and simultaneously I yearn for delicious boards and canvases to butter with acrylics to my heart’s desire. So what better way to get rid of those displeasing prints than to turn them into something I can be proud of?

All you’ll need are some correction fluid and a pen or two (markers are best for the glossy photo paper). Simply dump some correction fluid on your photo and tip your photo or use the correction fluid’s brush to form a pleasing shape. Then just leave it to dry. Sometimes this step alone is enough to transform your photo into something lovely.

Once it’s dry, just draw something else on top! You could also incorporate collage (handy for when a section of a photo turned out great), or anything you like. Let your artistic side loose, and don’t despair at bad photos anymore. Every one is an opportunity.

More here.