You may or may not know that I have been geocaching for a while now. It's a hobby that combines a lot of things I like--puzzles, gadgets, nerding out, being outside, finding hidden treasure, being in on something that other people aren't in on.
I guess I should explain a bit so those who aren't in the know can follow.
Geocaching involves using GPS receivers to find hidden containers, or "caches" all over the world. People like you and me hide them, and people like you and me find them. Really, they are almost everywhere. You most likely pass by them everyday without knowing it.
This is where my project comes in. Some people own "trackables"; that is, something that they release by putting in a cache for someone to find and move to another cache. Its movement is trackable on the geocaching website. People often attach items to the trackable tags, like figurines, which they call "travellers." I guess it's a way to "travel" without leaving your house.
So I decided as an experiment to make a disposable camera as my traveller. The instructions are for the finder to take one picture and to move the camera to a new cache for someone else to find it and do the same. Once all the frames have been exposed, I'll arrange to have it returned to me so be developed and for the images to be posted online.
There is a lot that can go wrong here. Here are just a few:
1. It could go missing. Trackables often go missing if someone decides not to move it, or hangs onto it, or just plain loses it.
2. It could get wet/too hot/too cold. Which may result in interesting exposures, or might ruin the film. I decided not to get the waterproof camera because I thought the quality would be worse and it didn't have a flash....we'll find out if that was a mistake!
I'm going to release it very soon in a cache nearby. I'm really excited to see where it goes and what the results will be. Remember the anticipation of waiting for your film to be processed? This is like that but 100x better because I have no idea what the pics will be of. I can't wait to see how the film turns out!
If you are interested in tracking the progress of the camera, you can do so on its geocaching page:
I'll post the pics on here, when/if I do get it back, so stay tuned! It might take a while though...
Posts
