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It’s amazing how the world of photography has grown in just a short amount of time. It seems like only yesterday that I got my first SLR manual camera and started taking pictures like a pro. Of course I wasn’t and I am still just an amateur. But today, you don’t have to be a professional to create high quality pictures. You don’t even have to spend that much and really don’t even need a professional camera rig to create images. If you want great looking images and you aren’t interested in professional quality, you can purchase a decent point-in-shoot digital camera and start taking pictures. Then you can boost that quality to a higher level with Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom 3.
But What’s the Challenge in That?
As I mentioned before, this is great for the everyday person who just wants to take pictures for fun and save their memories. But for those that are looking for more of challenge there is a new society of photographers that do not use digital cameras they use film cameras! Not only do they use film camera, they use toy cameras!
What Type of Photography Uses Toy Cameras and Why?
Lomography is a type of photography that uses vintage cameras and toy cameras. They use these types of cameras because it creates a look that in some circles considered as a bad picture. But with lomography, that is the whole point. The lomographer is looking for the off colors, wrong focus, vignetting effects. But the challenge is, they want to do it in a way that looks good and is considered art. But since this type of photography is done on film, the photographer doesn’t know what he has until the film is processed.
Lomography.com says there are 10 things that make up Lomography. If you live by these rules, then you can do Lomography.
- Take your camera everywhere you go.
- Use it any time – day and night.
- Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it.
- Try to shoot from the hip.
- Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
- Don’t think. (William Firebrace)
- Be fast.
- You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
- Afterwards either.
- Don’t worry about any rules!
What Types of Cameras Are Used for Lomography
Most types of photography use high end professional camera rigs or at least a good point-and-shoot camera but with lomography it’s the exact opposite, they use low quality cameras and most are so low quality that use a plastic lens.
Lomography has only been around since the early 1990s and was founded by the Lomographic Society in Austria. The Lomographic Society found that the cheap Russian made toy camera, Lomo LC-A took unique pictures that were high contrast, vignettes, and soft focus.
The original lomo cameras were the LC-A, Holga, Fisheye, Supersampler, and the Colorsplash.
As for new and improve version of these cameras, Lomography.com offers a great selections of lomo cameras to choose from. You can also find a selection of cameras on Amazon.com as well.
Examples of Lomography
There are many styles of Lomography, each style uses a different camera, lens, or a different type of film processing. Below is a list of my favorite creative commons lomography images. For more great examples checkout the lomography.com society and the lomography flickr groups. They both have great communities and they love to share their work.
Lomography Sprocket Rocket Examples
Image Source: Sprocket Rocket – Paris
Image Source: Sprocket014
Image Source: Sprocket015
Lomography – Fisheye Photography
Image Source: PhotoWalk
Image Source: fisheye-rol1-koech100-013
Image Source: Fisheye Mall
Cross Processing Lomography
Image Source: Maratea, again
Image Source: South Beach
Image Source: Broken Umbrella
About James
This is so cool James. Thinking back, I was a “lomographer” myself. Started with a simple “insta camera” (Kodak) and worked my way up. The pics above are really great and for a person who likes the challenge, I think it be a good hobby. I’ll still carry my 8mpx camera with me though, just in case 🙂
same here. I use to use disposable cameras and some basic film cameras. I got tired of seeing these imperfections. Now I wish I had kept some of them.
I really love the lomo look – and just wish it could be recreated with a digital camera to avoid the costs of film and developing. But the thing that digital products really can’t do is be unpredictable in an interesting way – they really only ever manage it in an annoying, broken way!
Hi Pete, I agree with you on the cost issue. It costs a lot of money to purchase these cheap cameras or get adapters to add to your old SLR cameras. However there some adapters that will connect these cheap toy camera lenses to you DSLR if you have a Canon or Nikon.
Also, over the last few weeks, I have been working on recreating these lomo effects in photoshop. I found some great resources and will create a tutorial using some of these great resources combined with what I found works best for me.
Just keep in mind, using DSLR/adapter combo or using photohshop to create the lomo effect isn’t really considered lomography. So when you use these tools make sure and tell everyone how it was created. Some lomographers take this this type of photography seriously and will call people out if they try to pass a fake off as the real thing.
Many years ago before digital I used to cross process film. I did it on a few pro shoots but it was very tricky to get right. I used to shoot on E6 Tran and then process it in C41 which was for negative film. You had to push the film 3 stops in the processing and over expose the E6 by 3 stops. The results were that you had a milky warm positive.
Thats pretty cool. I did a little of that in my photography classes back in the early 90s. Its a very cool effect.
My favourite technique was split process printing where you took a black and white print and took it through the sepia process but half way through the first bleaching bath you pulled it out so that the heavy shadows remained black and the highlights were bleached then when you put it in the sepia bath the highlights would go a light brown and the blacks would stay. This was one of the best samples http://www.grantlylynch.co.uk/locations/pics/09.htm