Throw your camera away
Okay, so don’t throw it away, that’d be a pointless waste, really. But you could consider throwing it around a little, and let gravity, inertia and other physics help you with your abstract photography.
The idea is to trip the shutter and then lob your camera through the air. The first couple of times you’ll have adrenaline coming out of your ears, but then the endorfines kick in as you realise what sort of results you are getting.
It all sounds rather dangerous, doesn’t it, but don’t worry too much, there’s a Flickr Pool of camera toss photos that contains over 2,000 photos, and rather few reports of smashed cameras.
Writes the guy who started the project:
The current interest in this rather bizarre form of photography stems from the creation of the Camera Toss interest group on the photography sharing and community website called flickr. I created this interest group after doing quite a bit of throwing my camera and enjoying the process and results. Essentially, I thought others might enjoy doing it or looking at the results so I shared them as I went. It also embodied some very core ideas about art that I find facinating.
How it went from there to getting linked everywhere, having a blog that at times attracts thousands of visitors a day, getting covered by the printed media, and needing this Mini-HOWTO is another story. If you are curious here is a good theory on such things. Regardless of everyone’s individual reasons for viewing or participating, it apparently had all the right ingredients to capture imagination and continue spreading.
Are you inspired yet? You should be, because there’s something strangely appealing and liberating about throwing expensive equipment around. Well, untill you drop it. Then it’s tears, horror, and expensive repair bills on the menu, I’m afraid.
Either way, check out the Camera Toss blog to learn more — they’ve even got a how-to on the site!
I haven’t dared try myself yet, but seeing how good the photos can come out, I think I might just have to give it a shot.
(a big thanks to PhotoJoJo, my favourite photography mailing list, for pointing out camera tossing this morning!)
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Categories: Art projects
Tags: Camera Toss | Flickr | PhotoJoJo
This entry is © Haje Jan Kamps / Photocritic.org, and was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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#1 - February 5th, 2007 at 11:32
when i get my camera back from nikon ill try it… reluctantly
hopefully it wont break again…
#2 - February 5th, 2007 at 14:47
Ooo. I like these a lot and the camera toss blog is full of interesting things. However, I catch like a girl so I’ll either be nicking my flatmate’s camera for this experiment or using my compact I think. I think camera juggling whilst someone else fires the cameras via infrared trigger is the next logical step. Explaining that one to the insurance company could be tricky though.
#3 - February 5th, 2007 at 15:10
You’ll be getting another flatmate if you try it.
#4 - February 5th, 2007 at 15:47
[…] Camera Tossing! Anyone game for a bit of camera tossing!? It could be a fun experiment if you have the courage to start lobbing your expensive camera around the place!! […]
#5 - February 5th, 2007 at 18:22
I’m too scared to try this :P
I’m poor enough that if I accidentally damage my camera, it’s going to be a while before I can afford a new one.
#6 - February 5th, 2007 at 19:42
try it with an old film slr. though i dont’t think i want a 3 pound metal minolta srt101 lodging in my forehead. maybe try a canon t50
#7 - February 9th, 2007 at 00:49
Wow, i have never tried that before, but i’ve already had loads of fun and some amazing results over the past hour. Thanks!
#8 - September 6th, 2007 at 04:29
Props for the write up, and thanks for linking to the howto, a lot of people miss that important info for folks interested in knowing more or trying it. (recent comments/traffic caused me to dig in the logs, seems PhotoCritic is likely the culprit). Cheers, Ryan