La vida lomo in Europe

Having been keen on photography for many years, I was instantly put off by all the work that goes into taking the perfect shot. If you’re anything like me, aperture, f-stops, shutter speeds, ASA mean zilch.So I reluctantly put that aside and just relied on my handy digital camera to do the rest. Boring!

As luck would have it, I was aimlessly surfing the web last November when I happened across the website www.lomography.com, featuring quirky analogue cameras along with the description “don’t think, just shoot.”

Hmmm…lomography? I thought, what the hell is lomography? Apparently it’s taking snapshots of everyday things — people, places and things — clicking away at them at a whim. In fact, the more abstract, blurry, out of focus and crazy the photos are, the better. You’re encouraged to “shoot from the hip,” to not to look through the viewfinder to compose your shot. No need for flash at night. No messing about with shutter speeds and settings. No Photoshop required. It seemed right up my alley and I was thrilled!

I purchased my first camera, an action-sampler (which is a multi-lens camera taking four sequential shots in a span of 1.5 seconds and capturing it all in one single frame), then went on to get the LC-A (Lomo Compakt Automat). Though there are only a handful of original lomo camera models made in Russia under the Leningradskoye Optiko Mech-anichesckoye Obyedinenie factory (LOMO), the LC-A is by far the most famous. Needless to say, it was love at first click. Now, seven months later and 16 cameras under my belt, I’m hooked.

Sixteen cameras, you say? Well, the Lomographic Society based in Vienna, Austria, coined the term lomography and has also taken a host of other cameras under their wing. So now I guess you can call lomo a photographic art form, and in that respect, I guess I can call myself something of a photographer. Oh, joy!

In a world where everything has gone digital and instant pleasures are pursued, it’s so refreshing to go back to photographic roots using film. I can’t begin to explain the anticipation and excitement of dropping off rolls at the lab and waiting impatiently for the films to be processed and shrieking with joy once they’ve come out and you realize they’re even better than you imagined (or sometimes worse, but hey, that’s life). I find myself hoarding expired film and stuffing my fridge with them, so much so that there isn’t space left for food!

Fine by me.

Lomography is definitely as much a venue of self-expression and experimentation as going back to basics and using film enables me to do what I please with my shots. Be it splashing a photo with a burst of bright color with color flashes, cross-processing films to get wild, crazy contrast, taking multiple-exposure photos or using a variety of lenses to get different effects and much more. The possibilities are endless. I find I see everything in a new light. It’s almost magical.

Now I find myself constantly with a camera at hand. I feel naked if I leave home without my LC-A and one or two others. My cameras have fast become an extension of my arm and I take them everywhere I go, even if it’s just to pop down to the shops to pick up dinner. It’s a fantastic way for me to document my life, what I encounter on a daily basis and give the viewer a small glimpse into my world. Living in Europe has also given me the chance to showcase this beautiful continent in glorious lomographic form and to share these with my friends and family back home.

It’s still hard to explain to someone who shells out thousands on a new DSLR why having an LC-A could be better. This cheap little Russian camera has changed the way I look at the world — even if it does smell a bit funny.

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Log on to http://www.lomohomes.com/golfpunkgirl.