World Toy Camera Day is celebrated annually around the world on the third Sunday of October, this year the day falls on October 16. There has been a growing interest in the kind of effects that a toy camera produces in photographs since the 1990s. These effects, such as lens flares, light leaks, vignettes, and distortions, all add texture and points of interest to an otherwise flat photograph.
While these effects can be applied to digital photographs with filters, the photos taken on toy cameras are still unique. The photos always have a nostalgic, vintage effect to them and no filters are required.
American photographer Becky Ramotowski was inspired by Pinhole Photography Day to create a day that would celebrate the kind of photos a toy camera could take. She dedicated an entire website to the 120 and Polaroid film, low-fidelity, blurry picture-spewing cameras.
Diana and Holga cameras are flagship mediocre toy cameras that are featured extensively on the website in the hope of urging amateur photographers to share their amazingly poor-quality creations. Today, photographers around the world celebrate the blurry, distorted photos taken with toy cameras.
World Toy Camera Day Timeline:
1960s- The Original Diana Toy Camera was Invented
One of the world’s first toy cameras was invented in Hong Kong.
2000- David Burnett Takes an Iconic Photograph
A campaign portrait of Al Gore was captured by photographer David Burnett on a Holga camera.
2002- Pinhole Photography Day Inspired Becky Ramotowski
Photographer Becky Ramotowski was inspired by Pinhole Photography Day to establish World Toy Camera Day.
2018- A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photograph was Taken
Israeli photographer Oded Balilty won a Pulitzer Prize for his powerful image of a Jewish settler defying Israeli soldiers.
Becky Ramotowski believed that toy cameras takes the pressure off to click good pictures instead they allow one to just enjoy the process of clicking pictures without thinking much about the end results.
Being inexpensive film cameras that are built with simple lenses, toy cameras don’t have a lot of features, and it’s hard to predict what kind of photos might emerge from a toy camera. But good photographers have been able to use them to take artistic photographs.
