Mickey makes it cute and all; but it still doesn't endear me.

Occasionally I read the spec for a product and I'm left with an overwhelming urge to try get inside the head of the designer in order to figure out just what it was that she or he was thinking when embarking on its birthing process. Sometimes it'll be a case of 'Wow! That's so amazing what inspired you?' Others it'll be a much more cyncial 'What, exactly, were you thinking there?' When someone pointed me in the direction of the Sakar Disney AppClix camera, it was definitely a case of the latter.

It's a Disney-branded camera, it comes emblazoned with Mickey or Minnie Mouse, Tinkerbell, a princess, or Phineas & Ferb. It's clearly aimed at kiddies. And I'm so in favour of getting little ones interested in photography that I'll always take notice of something intended to do just that. But this one has it, well, wrong.

Oh for sure the specs on this make it a fairly desirable piece of kit, with seven megapixels of resolution, 4× zoom, a micro SD card slot, and the ability for it to function without having to connect it to a PC, but it has one major flaw. It's designed to be attached to an iPad. Whilst it is certainly convenient to have a camera on an iPad, the iPad is in no way a convenient device to function as a camera. And it certainly isn't one that I'd thrust into the hands of an eager seven year old.

Its size, its shape, its primary function... just... no.

At $60, it is reasonable, especially because it comes with its own internal rechargeable battery, and there's a free companion editing app, too. But you attach it to a piece of kit that starts at $499.

Nope. When you've a youngun who really wants to have a go at photography, get a decent point-and-shoot at under $100 (I'm a big fan of the Fujifilm Z90), with an even better lens and video capability, too, and let her or him loose with that. They'll have a proper camera to call their own and you won't be fretting about your iPad. Everyone wins.

(Headsup to Engadget)

As part of my terribly glamorous lifestyle, which yesterday included writing a story-telling workshop for a theatre company and doing my laundry, I also attended the opening of the Blacked Out exhibition, held in an old railway arch in south London.

The exhibition features the work of eight artists, all of whom explore the interplay of light in a blacked out, urban space. There’s everything from a mirrored tunnel to an installation that uses glow-sticks. But it was of course the photographs that grabbed my attention the most. Okay, no, it was the glow-sticks. I admit it. How could I resist a neon Minnie Mouse hairband?

Convulsion Compulsion, by Sally Butcher

However, I was drawn to Sally Butcher’s beautiful photographic prints that layered delicately lit different aspects of the female body. Their subtlety was almost unnerving, but I found myself captivated by their strange contrast of tension and ethereality. And this contrast was taken up a few notches by the prints being in black and white, and the strange lighting of the venue.

If you’re in or around London, and the London Bridge area in particular, it’s worth an hour of your time. (And not just to play with the glow-sticks.)

Blacked Out runs from 21 to 28 August, 13:00 to 18:30, at Arch 897, Holyrood Street, London, SE1 2EL.