John Hawkins Unrated

What is Lomography?

Posted on Sep 03, 2008 by john in Geek Fun, Photography, mo30dc2008

One of the designers at my office is in to all sorts of quirky types of art. I think as a designer, that’s about par for the course, right? He knows that I have been getting in to photography quite a bit lately so he started telling me about something called Lomography. No, I’m not making that word up, if that’s what you are wondering. I won’t bog you down with a technical explanation of it here. I’ll leave that to Wikipedia. But basically, Lomography is the practice of taking casual snapshots that have over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposures, blurring and (my favorite term) “happy accidents.” One of the characteristics of lomo-photos, displayed in the photo to the left, is called “Vignetting”. This is where the edges of the photo have a dark ring almost giving it the look like you’ve shot it through a tube. It gives the photos such a cool look. These photos aren’t meant to be overly serious. It’s more about having fun and capturing slices of your day to day life. That doesn’t mean the results can’t be visually stunning (again, like the shot on the left.)

As luck would have it, and timing being what it is, I received a paypal payment notice via email at the exact same time I was checking out B&H Photos. I always consider the money in my paypal account to be my “Fun Money” and I try not to spend it on anything important. This Lomography Fisheye (170-degree lens) fixed focus 35mm camera seemed like a perfect thing to spend my fun money on. At only $39.95, I sorta felt like I was getting away with something. But, I had to take in to account that this camera is NOT digital and would require me to purchase film (standard 35mm film) and then have the photos processed once I take the shots. At least the camera was inexpensive, right? I’ll just keep telling myself that.

After I placed my order, I spent the next 3 hours checking out the LOMO group on flickr. That’s when I realized that I may need more than 1 Lomo camera. I haven’t even received my first one in the mail yet and I’m ready to purchase 2 more. One is called the “Action Sampler” and it has 4 lenses. Each time you take a shot, it fires 4 individual shots all on to the same negative.This will give a result that looks something like this shot. Another steal at only $30.00. The second camera is called the “ColorSplash“. It has 12 color gels that go over the flash. This can produce results like this yellow gulls shot. This camera is a little more pricey at $75.00. But still, it seems like so much fun, I must have it!!!

Once my camera shows up I’ll rush out and shoot a roll or two of film and get the results uploaded shortly thereafter. I can’t wait.

Do you have a Lomo camera? Leave me a comment with a link to some shots you’ve taken and let me know what kind of Lomo you have.

Tags: camera, lomography, Photography