Of Obsolescence

Over the last couple of months I have rediscovered my love of analogue cameras, thanks to Lomography. Long story short, they are company built on their love and production of lo-fi plastic lens analogue cameras in the style of those found in the Soviet Union a couple decades ago. The above photos were taking with my Lomography Colorsplash 35mm with Fujifilm 400 speed color negative film. The flash has a wheel built into it that can hold several different color gels, so you can tinge your photos with green, blue, orange, red, etc. You can see more of my Colorsplash experiments over here.

I recently picked up a Lomography Holga that also has a colorsplash flash. I haven't developed the first batch of black and white film I shot yet, but it is my new favorite toy, and it is ridiculously lo-fi. It's essentially a box with a flash and lens. Advancing the film depends entirely on me paying attention to the dots and numbers coming up in the view pane - no automatic safety stops when the next frame is loaded. Its technically a 120mm camera, but you can make all sorts of temporary modifications to the Holga to make it photograph on smaller sized film. I have gone into a gleeful little frenzy over my lo-fi toys, stocking up on color slide, red scale, and black and white film to play with over the coming weeks and months.

I have been really bored with photography for a long time, mostly due to the prevalence of the digital camera. Sure, digital is way more convenient and you can do some things you can never do with an analogue camera. But digitals can also take a lot of the fun out of photography by doing a the work for you. I enjoy the process of loading in the film, the possibility of light leaks, of never knowing what you're going to get until the film is developed. It forces you to commit to the moment, acknowledge the possibility of mistakes and pray for happy accidents.

Lomography ups the ante for me by allowing the user to do a lot of the manipulation of the image in the camera and the development process itself - colored flashes, multiple exposures, building panoramic shots blind by counting the clicks of the advance wheel, cross processing film in the "wrong" chemicals, and using many different forms of filters, splitters, and lens. I am in love with the lo-fi look of the shots, the over-saturation of color that seems to come out of almost every camera they produce. These pictures pop with life and character. Lomography has gotten me excited about photography again. As they say, the future is analogue.