Want to know how much film you and your camera are chewing through? John Sypal over at tokyo camera style does this by collecting box tabs. Regarding the photos above, he writes,

This is compiled from the box tabs of every single roll/pack of film I shot in 2012.

Since 2001 I’ve kept a tab from every roll of film I’ve shot in the backs of collage-based photographic journals. In the mid-2000’s I was shooting some 500 rolls a year- I’ve cut back to about 300 or so the past two years. A complete visual collection of all the box-tabs from the past dozen years would result in a much larger image.

It’s like a stamp or sticker collection book for photographers. You can find a larger collage of the photos above here.

P.S. A giant poster-sized collage of box tabs might make for a pretty wild home decor item.

John Sypal is the photographer behind Tokyo Camera Style, the “Sartorialist of the camera world”.

PetaPixel: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

John Sypal: I had a very typical middle class and middle American childhood. A semester followed by a year abroad at a university in Japan led me to the place I am today, namely a suburb just outside of Tokyo. I’ve been interested in photography since high school and upon studying and living in Japan have been enjoying the photographic scene of Tokyo and the people who make it all possible. In 2008 I was taking part in a weeklong photography festival and asked a guy if I could take a picture of his camera. And since there were lots of people around with film cameras at this event I asked a few more. I had just seen my first tumblr a week earlier, and so after getting a few more pictures Tokyo Camera Style was born.
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