The Ex Expat

17 October 2012

Have you heard of The 100 project? The 100 is a year-long collaborative photograph project, which over the course of 2012 is giving 100 disposable cameras to 100 people aged between 1 and 100, inviting each of them to capture one week in their life. I applied to take part, but sadly I wasn’t successful. But as there were 13,000 applicant for only 100 slots, I guess it was a bit of a long shot. However, to give everyone else a chance to of taking part too, the project recently introduced The 100 Week. From 1-7 October, anyone could grab a disposable camera, document their week, and then share their photos with the community either via their blog or The 100 Flickr or Facebook groups.

It was a lot of fun taking part, from remembering to pocket the disposable camera every time I went out, to waiting for the developed photos to be ready to pick up. In the age of digital photography, we’re so used to photos being instantly available, it made for a welcome and exciting change. But the other thing about using a disposable camera, besides waiting for a week to see how your photos turned out, is that there is always the chance they didn’t turn out. With a digital camera, you can just take another photo then and there. With the disposable it’s a bit of pot luck. And indeed, only about two thirds of my photos turned out. Two of them were so dark the store hadn’t even bothered to print them out, and the others were all VERY blurred, mostly because I’d been way too close to my subject. Turns out disposable cameras aren’t very good at close-up shots. But that still left me with 15 photographs to share from my week. Here’s the first half of them:

Just as every week, my 100 Week started with taking this little guy to nursery.

Mondays we’re usually running late, after the weekend has knocked our routine off course, and I ended up taking the subway to work.

The One Thing campaign that I wrote about - “If you could kiss one person in your life, who would it be?” - was still up at Potsdamer Platz. It’s been taken down now, but it made me smile every time I walked past it while it was up.

As you know, I work for the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (National Museums in Berlin), and my office is just on the other side of the Kulturforum here.

Okay, so this one is a bit blurry, but I wanted to include the beautiful birthday flowers I received from my colleagues.

Really impressed with the boy’s progress here - a few weeks ago his feet would’t quite touch the ground, now he’s whizzing round the nursery playground like Speedy Gonzales. Next step a bike with pedals?

There were some chores to do during the week, such as picking up a prescription from the pharmacy (A is for Apotheke, which is German for pharmacy).

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 and the rest of The 100 Week photographs.

(Edit: Added link to Part 2)