Alvin's Corner: Love and Sprockets
We’ve all seen that bridge. // Cinestill 800
I love my Sprocket Rocket.
My Sprocket Rocket is broken.
"Defective" is the official language. To be fair, I talked with our contacts at Lomography, and they immediately offered a replacement.
I bought a Sprocket Rocket at the end of December 2024. I don't exactly remember what compelled me. I didn't really have any interest in the camera itself or panoramic photography in general.
Part of it was seeing Jesus (resident Cool Guy, The Internet's Best Friend) playing around with one a few months prior. I'm easily influenced by my cool and kind friends. (See also: my recent foray into super 8/regular 8 motion picture cameras. Also because of Jesus.)
Part of it might be how much I enjoy toy cameras now. Last year, the BMC Crew sold me on the Holga, which I immediately fell in love with. No bells or whistles. Throw on a cheap flash, and you have a perfect camera.
It's just the pure and basic joy of making photos, something that I find myself losing lately, maybe from working here, being around cameras all the time, existing around the weird camera gear fetishization culture that fuels the industry. Which I know is stupid considering I'm…writing about camera gear right now.
But it's easy to feel jaded, cynical.
So why am I writing about a broken camera…
Well. Okay, I'm slow. Astrologers will say this is because I'm a Taurus (they're right). I keep a steady pace with most everything, and that includes shooting film. Unless I'm attending an event or going on a trip, it takes me at least a month to get through a typical 36-frame roll. The Sprocket Rocket cuts that in half. In my head, it's easier to treat every roll like medium format. It's easier to shoot 18 frames instead of 36. It feels like less pressure that way, more freeing.
The thing about pano cameras: getting stuck in the landscape trap. Obviously, landscapes look great on pano, but I've really been loving it for portraits and snapshots. It's understanding that there's a whole scene happening in front of me. I'm not here for brilliance. One of my favorite photos that I took on the Sprocket Rocket was the egg tray in my fridge door.
idk what they were protecting these bike racks from. // Cinestill 800
No joke, there’s at least one shot of an overpass on every roll of film I shoot. // Cinestill 800
It's a light-hungry camera, even at its widest aperture (the cloud setting). I thankfully love Cinestill 800, and I have a little Holga flash that works perfectly.
Again, I'm not here for brilliance. I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Maybe that's my favorite thing about the Sprocket Rocket. It makes me feel like a kid again, just exploring the world as a creative space, and it automatically caters to experimentation, whether that's multi-exposures or "weird" films. It's easy to forget fun, as both concept and praxis, especially when you're, say, financially unstable and mentally unwell.
Double exposure // Cinestill 800
This feels like a really messed up dream I had. // Cinestill 800
I think Lindsay was showing off her earrings? // Cinestill 800 with a green flash filter
Mine is broken now. The camera. Or, again, "defective". The bulb mode is nonfunctional, which has somehow led to inconsistencies with the normal shutter speed. The hot shoe doesn't work any more, which isn’t good when I like to use flash on this light-hungry camera. I thought about cracking open the camera, but after watching a video where someone took one apart, the guts are pretty complex, more than you'd think.
I love my Sprocket Rocket. It’s just sitting on a shelf in my living room. I don't know when I'll actually get another working one, but as I’m writing this, I’m going through the photos. As jaded as I’ve felt about photography and cameras, there are so many faces, so many people in all these photos. I'm not a portrait photographer by any means. If anything, I'm shy about taking photos of other people because it feels invasive, but I'm realizing it's worth it sometimes. It's worth remembering the people I care about in all their silly, small, beautiful moments. I just needed a plastic camera to remind me of the view.
Ghost Lindsay sings (probably Taylor Swift) to her husband and herself. // Psych Blues #6
“Don’t talk to me or my son ever again.” - Jovanni // Cinestill 800
Me and the homies at karaoke night // Psych Blues #6 (the 400 ISO version)
Egg. // Tri-X