the following photos were taken in berlin on october 2022 using a kodak disposable. as someone who takes literally hundreds of quick iphone photos of buildings and things nearly anytime i leave the house, this trip made me really appreciate disposable cameras, not as some nostalgic novelty, but as the actual tools that they are. what i learned to love about disposables is that you are simultaneously forced to care (you only have 27 shots, you can't see the results, each photo costs you $1) yet completely prevented from caring too much (quick, easy, no settings).
this is liberating. while i still took plenty of photos on my iphone, the clunky disposable weighing down my pocket invited moments of mindfulness. the ritual of excitedly pulling out the camera, deciding to spend a shot on that moment, quickly capturing it. when i look at these photos—some surprisingly good, most quite bad—i am instantly flooded with the memories and emotions of those moments in a way that i don't quite get from photos of that same moment on my phone.
as for berlin, i have a lot and little to say. it's a really strange city, you almost feel its history more than you can see it. i think it'd be a nice place to get lost in. it's a big city with a lot of very quirky, very famous architecture. i had a blast.
