Moving pictures ... Villagers in Katine. Photograph: Valentine Okoit
For all the multitude of technological advances bestowed on photography by the digital camera, there is a case to be argued that another relatively recent, if far more simple, innovation has brought equal artistic dividends - the humble disposable camera.
First emerging in the late 1980s, these plain, cardboard or plastic encased devices were aimed at the leisure market, in other words those who had left their camera at home or did not want to cart around a bulky, expensive SLR.
However, even more than its older point-and-shoot cousin, the Polaroid, the disposable camera's ease of use also lends itself perfectly to spontaneous, mobile expression, both by professional artists and by those with less experience.
One of the best recent photo exhibitions I've seen, Chris Coekin's The Hitcher, consisted entirely of disposable camera pictures snapped as the artist thumbed lifts around the country.
Why such praise for the disposable camera? Well, I do have an ulterior motive.
I'm editing the website for the Guardian's Katine project which chronicles the work of aid agency Amref over three years with a deprived community in northern Uganda.
Guardian Films, who have made a series of videos about life in Katine, recently handed out a number of disposable cameras to local people with no instructions other than that they should document their lives.
You can see galleries of pictures by four people: Sarah Akwiro, a 15-year-old schoolgirl; Valentine Okoit, 67, a fisherman and farmer; James Oluka, a 35-year-old musician; and Joseph Ocuga, 45, a cattle herdsman.
Personally, I think many of the pictures are beautiful. But why is this? Is it just that someone unused to taking pictures - the only photographers in Katine use elderly film cameras to take portraits at a stall in the weekly market - forget traditional composition and just shoot what they see? Or am I just swayed by the overexposed colours and blurry edges, giving me an unconscious dose of nostalgia for my own old family snaps?
