 as welding goggles on the front of the lens. However, like I stated in the overview, it is possible, and quite easy in low light actually. You DEFINITELY want to use a tripod, it's a given. Now, with all that said, let's talk reality here so you know what to expect and how to figure out the shutter speed you'll need in order to take quality, colorful, contrasty photos.
I was able to determine how fast I could comfortably open and close the shutter curtain by simply operating the shutter in front of my computer while recording. You can just use my results as a guide, or if you're so inclined, you can do this test yourself. Any audio program that let's you record a wave file and look at the visual representation of the wave file will work. You just start recording and operate the shutter once or twice in front of the mic. The click sound that the piece of wood makes as it hits the top and bottom of the camera will show as pretty sharp spikes on the wave file.
When I did my test, the distance or "time span" from open to close was a remarkable, blazing speed of 3/10 of a second. Remarkable and blazing both being sarcasm, as this is remarkably slow compared to fixed speed of even the cheapest disposable camera. Cameras don't have a direct translation for 3/10 of a second, the closest translation would be 1/3 of a second, which is certainly close enough for film.
I don't own a light meter, at least not a reliable one, so here's how I figure out my shutter speeds. I bring along a somewhat modern SLR camera that supports Aperture Priority mode, I set the aperture to f/16 and compose my shot, press the shutter button half way and look at what the camera says it is going to use for a shutter speed if I press the rest of the way. If the speed (reading) is much faster than 1/3 of a second, I know that a shot is not possible. I make a point of only only trying to take photos in places where there is low light, in most cases I get readings of a full second or more, which are super easy to do. Film has a lot of latitude, which means it's forgiving, anything even close is going to work. Sometimes I even have to open the aperture up a little to keep it in the one to two second range. For those shots I just open the shutter, count "one thousand, two thousand' and close the shutter. The shots I took at the marsh were just before, during, and after sunset. I started shooting when my SLR gave me reading of "4" which is 1/4 of a second, even though I knew my fastest hand movement without violent shaking was 1/3 of a second. They came out fine.
If you have a Digital SLR then life is really good, you can do an actual test shot for every shot, and under or over expose to get the shot (exposure) you want. This is extra handy when you go for time lapse stuff where you're going into speeds most cameras don't support, such as longer that 30 seconds. You can use "Bulb" mode and test your shot digitally, once you know how many seconds it takes to get the exposure your after, you take your Box Camera shot knowing it's going to come out.
Unless you can design a faster shutter, any kind of hand held photography is probably out of the question, and you'll probably have to take most pictures in low light, but trust me, it's a lot of fun and well worth the limitations. Now turn off your computer, go make a camera, and go shoot some film flying entirely by the seat of your pants.
Have fun and keep shooting film, Rick