The Gameboy Pocket Camera

The story behind the photos

A couple of years ago, I got this funny idea in my head. What if I bought an old Nintendo Gameboy and a Gameboy Pocket camera and used them to take photos? That would make for a cute 8-bit video game art aesthetic right? Like a portal back to the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Thing is, I’m honestly pretty technologically illiterate, so figuring out how to get the photos off the Gameboy and onto my computer or smartphone was a bit beyond my paygrade.

Anyway, earlier this year, I revisited this idea and realised it wasn’t going to be as difficult as I thought. As it turns out, nowadays you can purchase a few different devices to help you with the download process. So, I ordered one and tracked down a Gameboy and a Gameboy Pocket Camera on the internet (eBay, TradeMe, online stores, etc). It took a couple of months to get everything together and running, but over the last week, I’ve been overtaken by a Gameboy Camera Mania of sorts. At the start of this newsletter, you can see nine “photographs” I took in Auckland in the weekend. Below, you can see nine I took in Wellington a few days beforehand and a set of classic New Zealand album and EP covers I reshot to celebrate the end of New Zealand Music Month 2021.

Like, I said, Gameboy Camera Mania. And the timing hasn’t been great, as I should be doing a lot of other work things with my time right now - but such is life. Further below, I’ve included a few single frame shots from the grids above. In a couple of weeks, I’m going to attempt a similar exercise in Christchurch. People have even been asking me about prints! Sorry for being so messy and enthusiastic and not including any interesting music or writing in this issue of Selected Works, but oh well LOL.

Anyway, normal service will resume later this week or next week. Thank you for bearing with me.