I Travelled Across Europe With Two Disposable Cameras. This Is Why Every Photographer Should Try It.
WE LIVE in a time of potential instant photographic gratification. We check the screens on our digital devices often before we’ve even looked at a scene with our own eyes.
When we travel, it’s easy to get caught in a spiral of constant photo-taking, photo-checking, photo-retaking, photo-filtering, and then photo-sharing. But what if we only had one chance to take the photograph, and we’d only find out how good it was after it was too late to do anything about it?
I decided to try the experiment on a recent two-month trip through Europe. I bought two cheap disposable cameras from a French supermarket and set one rule for myself: I couldn’t take a digital photograph of a scene I had shot with a disposable.
A few weeks after I returned, I took the two cameras to a local photographic shop for developing. While none of these pictures will win any awards, my experiment reminded me that sometimes the rewards of delayed gratification are greater than instant.