We All love a bit of retro, the BBC’s Ashes to Ashes has ably demonstrated this with most of us wincing at Gene Hunt, the 80’s snake-skin booted macho detective abusing all and sundry and firing up the Quattro to screech to his work. We live in A.D. 2010.. and technology has progressed beyond all recognition in 25+ years… apart from the last bastion of 80’s retro-tech-culture, the “disposable” camera.
Today’s bride and groom will buy a number of disposables to try and capture photos from their wedding when their official photographer has gone home. More often than not disposables end up languishing in a dusty place, un-processed, or if they are developed the results frequently disappoint. As shoddy as some of the 80’s fashion styles, disposables are just as awful today as they were then. So why are they still with us?
Until the advent of shoebox360, it was just too hard to easily get access to the hundreds or thousands of high quality digital-photos taken at your wedding on your guest’s digital cameras. Many of these photos will be beautifully incidental, of family and friends enjoying your wedding and taken from a perspective that your official wedding photographer would never dream of snapping.
When all of the photos are combined together in a single shoebox360 gallery you will get a totally different perspective of what was happening during your special day. Lasting memories beyond the soft-tones, sepia and posed shots taken by the professional.
shoebox360 is a great way for your guests to relive the memories or for you to share with those that couldn’t be there, safely and securely, anywhere in the world at just the click of a mouse button.
More 2010 compare the meerkats “Simples” than 1985 Harry Enfield’s “Loadsa Money”.
So park up the smoky old Quattro and jump into your eco-warrior hybrid powered car.. the age of powerful all inclusive green wedding photography has finally arrived!
Give us your disposable cameras and we will give you a shoebox (online photo gallery and collection service) and a 100 free prints.
Anyone who has had the misfortune of using disposable cameras at their wedding will tell you they are worse than terrible as they offer very poor quality pictures and, at £60 for 10 tables, are expensive to buy and process. So here at shoebox360.com, we feel it is our duty to rid the world of them and give you a much better alternative.
We have set up the Ditch the Disposable Camera campaign and are encouraging brides who have bought disposables to hand them in and in return shoebox360.com will give you a high quality photo collection service in the form of a 3 month shoebox worth £30 (contemporary online gallery) plus a 100 free 6″ x 4″prints of your choice. This offer also includes tent cards for your reception tables and a reminder for your thank-you cards with your shoebox key on them.
So what are you waiting for…send in your cameras now and sign up to the campaign! Ditch them and we will dispose of them in an environmentally friendly way.
To enter please view the Disposable Camera Amnesty page.
No bride and groom would question the importance of getting great photos from their wedding and will spend hundreds, if not thousands of pounds on their professional wedding photography. However, unless you are going for the Rolls-Royce option, most wedding photographers will work alone and so focus on the key wedding moments and price their offerings based on their time spent at the venues which means most will leave before the evening festivities begin.
To cover this, brides and grooms opt for placing disposable cameras, a technology incidentally that has not advanced since the 1980’s, on tables at the evening event. Their hope is that they can capture these moments to fill the gap from when the professional photographer leaves, only to be disappointed by the low usage of the cameras, the desperately dingy images, poor focus and resolution quality of the photos. Another sad fact of life is that most people using the disposables will have had a “few too many” by the time they grab the camera and therefore taken photos designed to shock, not to provide great memories. The bride and groom on average will spend between £60-100 on disposables…. the must have accessory that more often than not is considered as money totally wasted.
In the 21st century, most wedding guests will take their high quality digital camera with them to the wedding and snap away from noon till midnight; yet most of these photos are never seen by the bride and groom because there are no easy ways to easily and securely share the full resolution images.. so these photographs are lost to the bride and groom forever.
shoebox360 was developed to solve exactly this problem, an elegant safe and secure way to gather and share digital photographs that is simple for everyone to use. So we say ditch the disposable cameras, get all the great photos from your wedding by using shoebox360 and according to our customers get a totally different perspective on the day by seeing what was happening with your family and friends as you and your professional photographer were doing the bride and groom thing!
shoebox360 is also a great unique wedding gift ›
Not everyone can afford a Hello! Magazine style wedding and plenty of couples are opting for a budget wedding these days. So apart from haggling with a professional photographer over price and getting all of the photos on a DVD, what other options are open to you to really save money?
Some bride and grooms have opted for disposable cameras to solve this problem and been sorely disappointed by the poor quality of the photographs they got back.
Find someone who is a skilled amateur or semi-professional photographer
Is there a skilled photographer amongst your guests? You will be amazed at the number of good amateur photographers out there! Failing this, ask around to find a friend-of-a-friend or contact the local art college who run photography courses and have lots of keen photography students. If you’re really lucky and more than one person steps forward, ask one to be responsible for the “formal photographs” and the other to work in the background taking photographs of your friends and family enjoying themselves.
If you are not using a guest, understand how many hours they can be at the wedding and agree this up front as you don’t want to find they have to leave halfway through your wedding.
What equipment do they have?
Good photographers will bring the right equipment for the job so you should ask what equipment they have or have access to. Big group shots need to be shot from a height, make sure the venue has a step ladder available if needed. Their equipment will also have to work hard over a long period of time, make sure they have spare batteries and storage cards to last the duration.
Planning your photography with your photographer
Planning with him or her is really important. If they can visit the venue(s) with you this will help significantly but they will also need to know your itinerary timings and what you want them to capture at what stages during your day.
Crowd Management
Professional photographers have years of experience of individually managing “the crowd” at a wedding. Assign an usher who can corral and manage people to help your photographer out.
What if no one can help you?
Don’t despair! Ask all of your friends to take as many photographs as possible of your special day. Today’s digital cameras provide almost “guaranteed” good photos. Have everyone upload their photos to your shoebox so you can then choose which ones you want as your “formal” wedding photos.
After the wedding
Your photographer and guests will have taken lots of photos. They can securely upload all of their amazing photographs to your shoebox from their home PCs, so all of the photographs from your wedding are in your personal shoebox. Delete what you don’t like and then share your online album with those that were there and those that could not make it, anywhere in the world!!
Prints and Albums
This is easily done as well as you have access to all the high resolution photos from your shoebox. You can also print photos, posters or canvases via shoebox360.
Friends who work in creative industries such as graphics design or publishing will have great skills to edit digital photos and layout albums… ask for their advice and maybe secure a little of their time for them to do their creative thing on your album or photobooks!
Actions speak louder than words and here at shoebox360.com, we feel it is high time we took some action over the out-of-date and low quality cameras that still grace tables at weddings.
Disposable cameras are expensive, sporadically used and they belong in the 1980’s. Plus the pictures you get from them can’t be easily shard and are very poor quality. There are alternatives.
You can leave CDs on your table for people to send back in OR you can make it really easy and more enjoyable for guests and buy a shoebox (a contemporary online gallery) from shoebox360.com. Guests can upload AND download photos of your event from their digital cameras – both theirs and everyone else’s.
So here it is – if you are thinking about buying disposable cameras for your wedding, then don’t. The alternatives are a 100 times better. If you have disposable cameras sitting at home with 6 frames taken on them and you are considering developing the film, then maybe it’s time to dispose of it.
In an effort to rid the world of disposable cameras, we at shoebox360 will guarantee one thing. We will continue to spread the word about the failings of disposable cameras and how you can save money elsewhere. All we ask in return is that you boycott disposable cameras and spread the word with brides and grooms to be.
Support Dispose the Disposables now by clicking below:
Or go to shoebox360.com now.
Got to love them and got to hate them. Free photo sharing sites, such as Photobox and Snapfish have got many strings to their bows and equally as many chains to grip you as a consumer.
But we love them for many reasons. Bizarrely though, sharing photos isn’t one of those reasons. First and foremost, we love them because they give us a really easy way to print pictures. Rather than being stuck on your PC, photos can easily be uploaded and printed in their hundreds. And to do it in the comfort of our living rooms whilst watching Strictly Come Celebrity Eating, with no need for visiting a high street store…lovely.
We also love them because they store our photos forever and ever. If our PC blows up or photos get damaged or stolen, you are safe in the knowledge that they are up in the clouds safe and sound.
But sharing is not where free sites core strengths lie.
Here is the dictionary definition of sharing:
• To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns.
• To use or enjoy something jointly or in turns
For us at shoebox360.com, the key word here is jointly. Without doubt you will go along to people’s special event and occasions and take photographs. Hands up if those photos – predominantly – stay on your own camera and very few see the light of day (we are probably all guilty).
So what’s needed is a sharing site to bring your photos together. Memorable occasions, such as weddings and birthday parties are a great case in point. By using a free photo sharing site, you could let people view your pictures but there is no opportunity for them to share theirs.
In essence that’s why shoebox360.com was set up. It operates differently to free sites. It’s not free, but we are not ashamed of that. It is a high quality collection service and gives you a sense of community and a real experience for your family and friends…guests to your event. You as the shoebox owner get loads more photos and you friends and family get to share with each other too. View, share, upload, download and print, the choice is yours and theirs.
So the next time you are holding a special occasion and want to share and collect your photos (as well as print them) you may want to consider other options to marmite, such as lemon curd and golden syrup.
Get a FREE shoebox360 trial or view our packages here: shoebox360.com/choose-your-shoebox
Ladies and gentlemen about to be married, your wallet is about to undergo some serious surgery. If your wedding is coming up, there is a strong likelihood you will spend over £20,000 - the cost of an average wedding – on it. With this in mind, the wedding industry will make sure you start off your married life poor financially, despite being rich in love!
So what can you do to keep the spend down? Here are some of our top tips:
- Don’t let the wedding become a hobby. The average couple get engaged 18 months before the big day takes place. This means you have lots of potential spending days and opportunities to use your salaries on wedding paraphernalia…..a sure way to see those pounds add up
- Re-cycle. Check out e-bay and wedding web-sites for their marketplaces to sell anything you are not going to use again
- Buy second hand. Maybe you could find your perfect table arrangements or dress at half the price
- Flower sharing. Are there any other couple getting married at your venue at the same time? Why not see if your colour schemes meet and if you can share the cost of venue flowers
- Photography. Contact your local amateur photography club and see if you can enlist the support of someone for the day. You are likely to get the rights to photos at a quarter of the cost of a professional . Add to that a shoebox360.com gallery subscription to collect your guests pictures from the day and you will have hundreds and hundreds of pictures to choose from
- Ditch the following: Disposable cameras, magicians, ice sculptures, an outfit for your pet!
- Food. No-one will notice whether they have the most expensive menu option. They will just want to be fed well and enjoy the company. Does your cake need to be heavily embossed rich fruit variety or can you make do with a sponge or tower of doughnuts?
- Fireworks and Doves. These evening events tend to be very expensive to do well so unless you are a premiership footballer we would advise against having them.
- Look for Guest Talent. Look around your guests and pull on them for favours. Could your uncle make a great master of ceremonies? Do you have a friend who can sing at the ceremony?
- Finally, adopt the pound-per-view policy. Spend your money on the parts that will give you the most enjoyment and will have the most exposure.
Should disposable cameras be banned?
Back in the good old days of film photography and weddings with brides that looked like marshmallows on acid, disposable cameras were a must have. Anyone that took a camera to your wedding would take a few random photos which would be printed at bonus print and if you were lucky you may have got one of the mini pictures that came with the 6″x4″ master print, which ultimately ended up in Auntie Gwen’s album.
You didn’t see any of the pictures, so the invention of the disposable camera was a god send to brides who just wanted to see the day from every angle (bar from down the usher’s trousers).
Fast forward to 2010, the disposable camera is still around. How and why? Legacy, one would suspect, though maybe it is still a necessity… Does the addition of multiple digital cameras at a wedding mean that the modern day bride and groom see any more of their pictures? How many of your pictures have you shared? Are they confined in the main to your computer with a smattering on occasion appearing on Facebook or another social networking sites? It’s OK, I think we are all guilty.
So, isn’t it about time we set the high quality digital images free and let them bring happiness to those who have just got hitched? It would make for a greener world and a reduced photography budget. Maybe then we COULD say goodbye to the disposable camera and it could take its place with the Sinclair C5 and the Betamax VHS in the 80’s museum.