The gift of Lomo

Ahhhhhh!!!
Check out the amazing and unbelievable and totally awesome care package I just got from my friend B the other day:

Recesky, Diana F+ (with roll of 120mm film), and a Holga 135

I've been wanting to get a Holga for a few years now, but never really got around to making the purchase. Probably because I felt so busy with other things and I figured it would just sit around anyway. But also because I thought all Holgas were 120 and I couldn't find anybody local who does that kind of thing anymore. So I put it in the category of "things to figure out someday."

But... my dear friend B, overheard me talking about my Holga daydreams and offered to send me hers as a gift! I was so stunned and humbled by her generosity. You know you have a good friend when they do something nice for you and make it sound like you're doing them a favor. And that's what happened here. She said she had too many cameras anyway or something silly like that. So sweet... Anyway, I didn't know anything about how to use these cameras, so I did a lot of googling last night. And I found myself knee-deep in the wondrous new world of lomography...

What is lomography? Well, I'm just learning about it myself. You know all those instagram apps for the iphone that make your photos look distorted, but kinda cool. Or gives them a vintage look? I'm pretty sure all those apps are just trying to be this. But this is the real thing. And to do it with film is a little more complicated, because it's not editing after-the-fact like the apps are. 

In our hi-tech world, where every photo we take has to be laundered though PhotoShop - cropped, lassoed, and highlighted, lomography is refreshingly lo-fi. It's a calling back to the basics of photography, the skin and bones. It is haphazard and imperfect. It is not necessarily shiny and straight, but more unrefined and raw. It's usually plastic toy hand-cranked cameras with no batteries. Being a lomographer causes you to give up the need for control - the feeling that every shot needs to be perfect every time, and reminds us all to have fun with it. To go a little crazy. Photography is art after all, which by its nature is free of rules and boundaries. Maybe I like that little blur there, I think it looks cool. Maybe the vignettes in my photos were caused by light leaks, but I kinda like 'em that way. Maybe I double exposed by accident, but that shot is rad! The style in general is very candid, very retro, kinda grainy and grungy and fun.

Of course, this in turn graduates itself to intentional double exposure, blur and and the like. And you can get kind of creative with the results if you want to.

Wow! I was so stoked to get out with these cameras today and play around with them. I bought film for the first time in 6 years, and figure out how to load the things. It turns out this Holga is a 35mm, as is the Recesky, so getting film was no problem. I got color for the Holga and B&W for the Recesky. Then Caleb and I went out and fooled around. Here are some of the fun ones from the Holga. It isn't too grungy, so the effects with this camera can be very little unless I intentionally utilize them.

Pretty straight forward

Some vignetting to the left

Unintentional

Intentional 

 My son's favorite

 

...And this one is just cute 

We haven't developed the Black & White from the Recesky yet because we have a few more frames left. But I really look forward to seeing those too.

Remember when you didn't know what your photos would look like until after you processed them? It's like Christmas Day walking into the Photo Lab...

:)

More soon...