Travelling with my DIANA (camera)

A $1 Box of Madness

The scream came from nowhere. “Someone’s camera is in the water”. Panic broke. The man by my side launched himself across the shallow pool, and in one determined move, scooped the camera out of the water and on to the ledge beside it. “Take the battery out”, someone yelled. “Yeah, take the battery out”, agreed a girl in a red bikini. I paddled over, picked up my Diana, turned and took a photo of the astounded faces. “Wow, is that one of those underwater cameras” asked an impressed American dressed by the poolside. “No”, I said. “It’s just pretty much the worst camera in the world”. 

First produced in the early 1960s by a little-known, Chinese company, ‘Great Wall Plastics’, the Diana camera, was sold around the world for just $1. Made entirely from plastic and completely manual (thus the ‘underwater feature’), this ‘toy camera’ has a tendency for light leaks, blurring and heavy distortion. Most hated this box of madness – it was out of production by 1970 – but a few saw potential in Diana’s unpredictable character. Influential photographers such as Nancy Rexroth embraced its faults. This $1 dollar camera became the decade’s cult toy for the adventurous. 

In an age where you can expect even the most standard digital cameras to take crystal clear images, the return of the flawed 60s classic has been a bit of a surprise. For someone like me who has only ever shot on digital, working with Diana is a pretty crazy ride. This simplest of machines has only two shutter speeds (1/60th of a second and infinite - i.e. whenever you let go of the lever), three standard aperture settings (cloudy, less cloudy and sunny), and three focus settings (yep you guessed it; close, medium and far). It uses 120 film and takes between 12 and 16 shots per roll.

Many go way too far into the whole girl analogy, but there is no doubt Diana is moody as fuck. She’ll scratch your film, blacken your image, splodge orange onto corners, blur almost everything, and leave you trying to remember what it was you even photographed in the first place. There is, however, something about the randomness, the faultiness and the sheer incompetence that enables the Diana to capture an emotion and mood that is so absent from the sharp, brilliant, flat images of even the priciest DSLRs. 

The Diana is a great travel companion for a number of reasons. It’s light, cheap and no one is ever going to nick it. A fat SLR intimidates. So often I’ve seen a great personal shot, of people just going about their daily lives, only to ruin it by reaching for my Nikon. Suddenly everyone is looking at you, the situation has changed and the moment is gone. The Diana’s small size and budget feel lets you get away with it. Camera’s talk and people simply feel more comfortable with eccentric and cheap than rich and professional. The Diana also allows you to capture a different kind of photograph from your usual travel snaps. More of an interpretation of the moment than an accurate replication, the imperfections lend a strangely human grit and emotion to your image.