We call it the #ICMEETSERIES and thought it would be interesting to find out a bit more about the people behind the disposables. We asked a few IC contributors to tell us a bit about themselves and this is what we got in return…

IC MEET SERIES – Q+A with…

Kathy Drasky – San Francisco, CA. USA
INSTAGRAM

What do you do for a crust?
I’m an independent filmmaker.

Can you tell us about your creative background?
Ah! It’s a long story, best told on my “day job” website www.kazzadraskmedia.com. But essentially, I worked in publishing right at the start of the desktop publishing revolution, so while my initial background was writing and editing, I soon found myself doing typesetting and graphic design, too. With all that going for me (lol), I went freelance and eventually launched a successful editorial and design business. I’m a Capricorn – an overachiever, I guess. Having my own business wasn’t enough – I started writing freelance articles for local papers and eventually online publications. Sometimes they wanted photos to go with the stories. I took them – this is before digital – with a disposable camera! Time went on and my editing and design business became digitized, of course. Photo taking became digital photos. At first clients were happy that I could take photos and get them posted to their website or blog, but the demand for video was increasing. I used to outsource to video production companies, but then I realized I could shoot my own video with my iPhone. Last year I completed my first independent film – with my iPhone. Telling you all this, I have a little anxiety about what might be next. It seems my creative process is to follow the technology.

What inspires you to shoot film?
The more digital and mobile my world got, the more I started missing film. Even though I was never very good with film cameras, and had relied on disposables 20 years ago, I just like the look. It’s different, slower, dream-like, especially color.

How did you come to connect with Indisposable Concept?
A photographer I follow on Instagram (@sadkids, Geoffrey Ellis – whose work I particularly like) was featured. I said, “Hey, this Indisposable Concept is bringing back disposable cameras!?” The next time I walked by a Walgreens I went in and bought two disposables.

Do you remember what was in the first roll of film you shot for IC?
Palm Springs, Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain, CA.

What is your fav photo that you’ve shot for IC? Tell us a bit about it.
They’re all my favorites. Because when you go back to film from digital/mobile, you have to stop and think about your shots again. You only get 27 over the course of a week.

It seems film photography and disposables are making a comeback, why do you think that is?
I think we are inundated with images online all day/night long. Not only does everyone have a mobile phone with a camera, too many people upload without editing. I don’t mean using apps – I mean too many people don’t think about editing and curating their social media feeds because it’s just so easy to snap and post, snap and post. With film you have to be more economical and thoughtful. Since most of us sold our film cameras, disposables are an affordable way to get back into film. There’s also a nice delay with film. You have to wait to see your image. The distance between the time the image is made and developed, it provides a different, more artistic perspective.

If someone destroyed all the disposable cameras in the world and you had the very last one, what would you capture?
OMG – that would be too big a responsibility to bear. There wouldn’t be much meaning in the world without disposables, so I guess I’d sell this last one on eBay to the highest bidder and go out with a bang.

What does 2016 hold for you?
Finishing up the film fest circuit with my short documentary, “Jeanne & Mike: Original Art”, which was completed early last year. I had no idea how long the follow-on promotion of something like that would be, but it’s all good. Then I’m going to sit down with the footage and material I have for a new short documentary film project and begin to sort that out. Some travel, I hope – and lots more photo taking.

Explain your style/approach when shooting a roll.
Economy. When making the transition back to film from digital, it really makes you stop and think before each attempt at an image. I usually take a disposable with me when I’m traveling, and I really do think I ask myself before each shot, “Is this something really interesting and/or unique?” “Is this something I’m probably not going to see again?”

How would you describe your photographic style?
I like to think of being out and about with a camera as kind of a treasure hunt. I shoot what catches my eye. I look for the “extra” in the ordinary.

Who or what influences you creatively?
I think I’ve always been influenced and inspired by the technology around me. Whether that was our family getting a color TV set when I was four years old, my grandfather’s Polaroid camera, the groovy relatives who had a Betamax, cordless phones, the world wide web. Over the past ten years, the technology has come even faster and more furious. With each new breakthrough there seems to be more ways to communicate your creativity. And, then along comes a project like the Indisposable Concept that lets you go back in time, yet share your work on Instagram. Pow! Blurring the decades like that, hugely influential.

Where do you find inspiration?
By taking a walk. Even on the darkest, least creative days – if I can get out for a walk, 9 times out of 10 something will happen that restores my faith in the process.

Fave place to shoot?
It’s hard to beat where I live – San Francisco, on a small scale and California as part of the bigger picture.

5 at 5… (For lack of a better name)

5 photos from history you wish you’d taken?
1. Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV (I had to Google this, the photographer’s name is Robert H. Jackson and he is still alive)
2. Buzz Aldrin’s shot of Neil Armstrong, right after he planted the American flag on the moon
3. Just last week there was a photo of a 106-year-old African-American woman visiting the White House and dancing with Michelle Obama, while the President looked on – wow! (Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

5 people you’d like to photograph?
1. Virginia McLaurin (she’s the 106-year-old woman who danced with the Obamas).
2. Barack Obama
3. One of the Kennedys – any one will do – but Caroline, in particular
4. A Manson girl, and if none of them are still alive, then Patty Hearst
5. Donald Trump (it would definitely be interesting to see that comb over in person, and what type of lighting or filter would need to be used to do his orange skin justice)

5 books you wish you’d written?
1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
2. The White Album by Joan Didion
3. Polaroids from the Dead by Douglas Coupland

5 people you’d invite around for drinks and dinner?
See the five people I’d like to photograph – if I’m going to take their photo, they might as well stay for dinner. I’m a pretty good cook. But I’d like to add a plus one bodyguard for each of them – or perhaps to protect myself.

5 go to songs to get you in the mood?
There’s only one: “Photograph” by Ringo Starr.