Summer camp photos, 1992

A while ago I ran across a stack of old photos that I took at summer camp. I recall the camera I used quite clearly, because it used disc film. This marginal, unpopular format produced grainy, unfocused images due to the small size of the exposed negative.

However, the compact format allowed disc cameras to be small, portable, and cheap; perfect for a kid to take camping. Looking at these photos now, I appreciate their dreamy, lo-fi quality, and I know it must be summer 1992 because in one of the shots (not included here) I’m wearing a commemorative shirt that clearly shows the year.

In searching for more about the format, I was thrilled to learn about the existence of disc-cameras.com, the personal website of a diligent collector who owns dozens of them, all exhaustively catalogued and photographed. It's the kind of proper old-school website that we don't have enough of anymore.

'Blurry image of trees, with water visible in the background.''Blurry image of trees, with an ominous darkness obscuring the right side of the frame.'

'A lone figure on the beach, viewed from above.'

'A field of trees viewed from above, with partial view of the observation tower itself.'

'A forest observation tower, viewed from below.'

'Cabins with a child in the background and a camp counsellor in the foreground, with his underwear worn outside his shorts.'

'An osprey nesting platform in the distance, with the photographer’s thumb obscuring the lower right of the frame.''A shot of the horizon, with a lake in the foreground and a small island.'

'Two camp counsellors posing on a rocky outcropping, one of them all in denim throwing gang signs, the other in drag, posing with hand on hip.'