camera hacking for artistic purposes

What could be a better start of this blog, then a Hello Kitty-camera hack? While browsing the really nice blog “Four Corners Dark”, I found his post about this toycam-hack performed by a guy called Formica. The camera is a disposable camera loaded with a pre-exposed frames featuring the great Hello Kitty! Now, you should already know that you should not return the camera for film development, but instead reuse the camera for your next rolls. Even if it takes a little work to open up the camera, and maybe some patching to get it operational again, it is still worth it if you are a little experimental. In this case the result is really nice because of the extra mask in the lens, and gives a strong unique vignetting effect. In the image below, he used cross processing techniques (Centuria color negative in black and white developer), giving lovely color tones. Check out Formica’s original images on Flickr, where you’ll find both the standard Hello Kitty film roll as well as the hacked version images.

BR/Svante