Don’t Think. Just Shoot.
Welcome to the Wacky world of Lomography
Chris Rae Think back, maybe 10 years or so. I was 11 then, Limp Bizkit’s popularity was waning and WWF wrestling’s glory days where starting to fade. Within a year, everything which had been at the centre of pop culture was changing. The life of another household name was coming to end too. There were barely any digital cameras in 2001, and any that did exist were terrible -GameBoy camera anyone? The only way to take a good picture a decade ago was on film. Now of course, film is all but dead, gone the same
way as the cassette tape, the typewriter or Concorde. However, one group of photographers refuse to give up their love of emulsions, and are in some ways offering film a second coming, welcome to the wacky world of Lomography.
[Now film is all but dead, gone the same way as the cassette.] Lomography is an avant garde photographic style that stems from the 90’s student scene in Vienna, Austria. Founders, Matthias Fiegl and Wolfgang
Stranzinger were on a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic when they discovered the diminutive Lomo Kompakt Automat (LC-A) in a second hand store. The story goes that they and their friends were so blown away by the intense colours and Vignetting (darkening of the corners) that the little Russian camera produced, that when they got back to Vienna everyone wanted their own Lomo, to the point where they had to smuggle them out of Russia. The craze grew so rapidly that they decided to give it a name and Lomography was
born. Now, I have a bit of a soft spot for all things Lomography. I love the feeling of using film, thinking about which one will produce what effect in what camera. To some people, this may sound like a total waste of time when a digital camera or iPhone app could do the same thing for free. However, an app will never have the same appeal, film is a physical entity, something that produces prints you can actually hold and enjoy forever, and that can’t just be lost with the and errant strike of the ‘delete’ key.
Lomographers shun the digital age and instead choose to stick to the tried and tested world of film. There are a number of reasons for this, some say it is because of the look film gives, others for the fun of not knowing what you have captured until the spool is developed.
[Lomographers shun the digital age and instead stick to the world of film.] Heidi Mace, online manager from Lomography UK explained the lure
of Lomo graphy: “Lomographers are completely hands on with the shots, choosing a camera due to its unique abilities such as the dreamy square shots of the Diana F+, the heavy vignetting of the LC-A+ or the exposed sprockets of a Sprocket Rocket. They then carefully choose a film, and a lens, and get shooting, sometimes layering multiple exposures and cross processing their films to get amazing artistic results that stand apart from all the digital shots on Facebook.” She added: “People love the creative
potential of analogue cameras, and you only have to look through some shots to see why. The cameras are simple to use, and you can modify and experiment to your heart’s content, creating photos that are uniquely yours, never to be recreated, and capturing a moment in a way that nobody else could.”
[“Lomography is growing at a rate of knots! We’re bucking the trend by not doing any digital.”]
Lomography is not just a name given to the photographic style, make no mistake about it, they are now a multinational company with stores across the globe. The company also has some fairly notable fans, such as: Franz Ferdinand, Daft Punk, Nikki Sixx and Meatloaf. Also, a certain Vladamir Putin is credited as being the ‘grandfather of Lomography’, because when Lomography was trying to take over the sole rights to distribute the LC-A from LOMO, the St Petersburg optics company that made the original Russian
version, Putin was head of the Commitee for External Relations of the St Petersburg Mayor’s Office and he made sure that this great deal for his city went through.
[As large film makers have all but ceased production, Lomography have come to the rescue of their loyal fans.] The whirlwind success of Lomography shows
no sign of slowing down either, says Heidi: “Lomography is growing at a rate of knots! We are bucking the trend and we don’t do any digital equipment, and people seem to really enjoy that. We provide an alternative to your hundreds of generic digital photos or camera shots, and we love the creativity that working with film allows.” The company manufactures almost 20 different cameras, some are their own design, like the Spinner 360 or the
Sprocket Rocket, others are redesigned classics, such as the Diana or the Lomo LC-A. They also sell on refurbished vintage Russian models like the Zenith E or the Lubitel as well as the FujiFilm Instax range of instant cameras.
[Lomography offers 20 of their own cameras as well as refurbished R u s s i a n classics.]
As large film makers such as Kodak, Fuji and AGFA have all but ceased developing any new and creative films, especially in 120 format, Lomography have come to the rescue of their loyal fans by releasing their own branded film too, with every ISO rating and format catered to, they even do slide film or black and white. To top it all off, they are rolling out a mail order film processing service this year too.
Keep reading for the [Source] Magazine Lomography group test!