Industrial and interaction designer Ruben van der Vleuten always wondered what happens to a package when you sent it in the mail. From A to B is his way of answering that question; a short film shot with a home-made hidden camera that he attached to the inside of a box and then shipped. Read more…
Having cameras passed from person to person around the world isn’t a new idea, but FOCUSED is a project that takes it a step further by using entire SLR camera kits. Five of the kits will be sent out in early November to photojournalists, with each kit containing a vintage 35mm SLR preloaded with ISO 200 film, a manual focus lens (24mm, 35mm, or 50mm), a small notebook, an emergency roll of film, and a camera strap.
The bags will be shipped across the world from one photojournalist to the next – one in a small town in the middle of the U.S., another among relief efforts in a natural disaster zone, or working the White House press pool. Each photojournalist will get only one click of the shutter. [#]
The photographers will also be asked to document their photos by adding journal entries to the notebooks. The kits will be sent home once the film is finished, and the resulting photographs will be published online, along with their notes.
Five years ago, web designer Matthew McVickar decided to give one lucky disposable camera a free vacation, sending it through the mail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Honolulu, Hawaii with the instructions “Take a photo before you pass it on!”. When he got the camera back, there were seven photographs taken by various workers in the United States Postal Service that show the cameras journey (and the inner workings of the USPS!).
Read more…
Y Combinator-funded photo startup Picwing started out in 2008 as a typical photo-sharing service that also beamed your photos to a fancy, $249 digital picture frame that you could use to easily share photos (i.e. baby pictures with your parents). Turns out people weren’t willing to drop that much cash on a digital frame when similar products were bigger, cheaper, and similar in functionality.
Picwing then decided to focus on printing photographs, and realized that many people would like to share more physical prints than they actually do. For example, people might want to share photos of their young children with relatives, but don’t have the time to have photos printed and mailed.
Using the Picwing app for iPhone application or Android, you can send full-res photos directly to the service from your phone. Picwing then automatically prints and mails the photos to up to 6 recipients for a subscription fee starting at around $5 a month for each recipient. Photos can also be added to accounts from your computer or through email, and you can choose to have 15 photos mailed up to twice a month (for a slightly higher fee).
We like the business model, and think there’s definitely a need that Picwing meets. Is this a service you would use?
(via TechCrunch)
