Is Lomo the future of film? [and other Lomo marketing threads]

[Andy K]

Smenas are extremely common in Poland. A Polish guy I worked with was talking about his and was amazed at the prices people will pay for them.

 

[razocaine_07]

People need to understand the difference. LOMO is an optical products company in Russia that made some funky little cameras. The Lomographic Society International are the people who overprice those funky little cameras. That said, their film deals are always pretty good.

I haven't used this in a long time, but here's my 'Lomohome': www.lomohomes.com/Minitar1

nice lomohome, especially enjoyed your web log entries

 

[philldresser]

There was a write up on Lomo cameras in the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago.Had ring flashes and all sorts??? i'll scan and post if you are interested.

Phill

 

[Andy K]

The ring flashes and most other accessories are products sourced cheaply by the Lomographic Society and then sold at extortionate prices. Only the LC-A, Smena and Lubitel are truly LOMO cameras.

 

[N O Mennescio]

For what it's worth, I know personally at least three young persons who shoot's with either holga, Lomo LCA or some other plastic camera bought from Lomographic Society. To the best of my knowledge they have each shot several rolls of film. For everything else they use their mobile phones. So thats about 10 rolls of film sold that would otherwise be gathering dust on some shelf. Considering the amount of Lomo related sites on the net there is a lot of film being shot. And I would hazard a guess that quite a lot of them are young enough to have grown up with digital cameras. I can't see them choosing a ”normal” film camera as complement to their mobile phone or digi compact. So if 10% continues to shoot film, maybe 10% of those will want to explore film with a ”normal” camera? Every little bit helps. Right?

 

[Frank Szabo]

Dead Link Removed

Do product search for "Holga" or "Lomo".

Like I've always said, the best way to keep film alive is make it a luxury item or a fashionable one.

Regards, Art.

One problem with that notion - if fashionable or a luxury, the medium will be taken over by useless yuppies in the manner most other "fashionable and luxurious" things have been, the real art being lost to a fad.

 

[philldresser]

Lomo article

Attached is a pdf of the article I mentioned

 

[arigram]

Passing by a local bookstore chain, I saw a funky film camera at the store front but couldn't stop to check it out. At the website I discovered that they offer the full range of toy cameras, some that I would really like to try, but the cheapest one goes for 30 euros! The Holga Starter Kit is 70 euros! :O

Dead Link Removed

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Just how many rolls of film can be put through a Holga before it falls apart?

How many customers are going to keep using it when the light leaks spoil the picture and not enhance it?

Seems like a poor choice of camera to promote film use. The XYZ generation will soon go back to their cell phone cameras, and if they want light leaks they'll photoshop them in.

OTOH, this Lomo craze has been going on for close to 10 years.

 

[Phormula]

Frankly speaking, I think I had been a "lomograph" ante litteram, because long before the Lomo came out, I used to take candids with a small P&S loaded with print film and have them developed in the cheapest place (for me it was 9x13 prints made at the local supermarket). Also the film was cheap expired or almost-expired film bought at a local store for next to nothing. Some of the pictures were good, others funny and we had a lot of fun in the process. Exactly the opposite of my slides, where I use good film and a professional lab.

Nowadays, I think we should not look at the LOMO people top down. While I will not spend all that money to get a camera if I can get something similar for a few Euros and even for free and I can be as much creative as them, for me they are just having fun with a camera and if I have the right to have fun shooting a sunset with my FM2 and a 50 mm lens, I don't see any reason why those people could not have fun shooting their crazy pictures. Not to mention that anybody that buys, develops and prints a roll of film nowadays is contributing in keeping this medium alive. So, let's avoid judging them and let's consider them just people doing something different with a camera. And if somebody among them (and it happened, I personally know one example) starts with digital, buys a Holga, gets fascinated by film and ends buying and using a Rollei TRL, well I don't care if people entered the room from the main door, the back door, the side window or even the roof window, as long as they join the film party, have fun and promote the medium in a digital world. My 0.02.

 

[Akki14]

ari - you're better off taking a gamble on ebay and buying direct from hong kong. They're a lot cheaper there even with shipping and the headache of waiting forever for it to show up.

Nicholas Lindan - Actually Holgas are pretty robust. Mine still works after being dropped on the pavement from hip height (not lomo related accident, it fell out of a bag when I wasn't handling the bag) and I've had mine for several years and have been using it for quite a few of those years. Light leaks are mostly from the poor rolling of the film in the camera, easily fixed by a quick google and jamming some film box folded over under the left hand spool. Do you always insult items you've obviously not used? It makes me wonder why you read the toy camera section of APUG when you obviously don't like them based on your previous posts here. Play nice or don't play at all.

 

[Q.G.]

The present day Lomo-thing is an absolute abomination, noone should even come near to, let alone touch.

Lomography was once about not having to worry about whether your equipment was good enough, whether that 1.2 lens had perhaps a tiny bit more coma in the corners than the 1.4 lens also available, etc.
It took the worry about money and how it should be wisely spent out of the equation. Concentrated on the fun that still is to be found in photography, laughing at any worries about the imperfections equipment may display.
Great!

Now, it is a vehicle to extract absolutely ludicrous sums out of people's pockets, pushing the imperfections (the things we should not worry about - think about what that means) as selling points, qualities we should pay far too much money for.

If this is Lomography, we can well and truly announce that it has expired. It is dead.
Don't let those moneygrabbers tell you it is not.

 

[elekm]

I think that anything that inspires creativity (even digital) is a good thing. And if it leads people into film or to continue to use film, then that can only be positive for the medium.

 

[Phormula]

If this is Lomography, we can well and truly announce that it has expired. It is dead.
Don't let those moneygrabbers tell you it is not.

I don't believe so. Lomography, in its original spirit is not dead, it just does not need to use a Lomo camera anymore. It is plenty of people out there that take pictures without too much worry about the quality of the equipment they are using. This includes users of cheap and yesteryear's digital and users of many toy cameras or yester-yesteryear film P&S, most of them you can buy for 10 bucks a dozen, delivered.

 

[Ektagraphic]

That is interesting to see film cameras at an Urban Outfitters store. I wonder if they sell? I think that is great, but I hope Lomo is not the future of all film...............

 

[Q.G.]

I don't believe so. Lomography, in its original spirit is not dead, it just does not need to use a Lomo camera anymore. It is plenty of people out there that take pictures without too much worry about the quality of the equipment they are using. This includes users of cheap and yesteryear's digital and users of many toy cameras or yester-yesteryear film P&S, most of them you can buy for 10 bucks a dozen, delivered.

You are right, of course.

I will rephrase what i said: the thing that bills itself as Lomography, selling crap cameras for far too much money on the internet, is a Big Fraud that should be shunned like the black death.

Just remember what Lomography was (sorry: is!) about, and you'll instantly see that.

Just remember too that a camera need not be inexpensive either to allow 'true' Lomography (you never needed a Lomo for Lomography by the way. Lomos just happened to be around when the thing began.).
The thing is that it should not matter at all what you are using.

 

[Q.G.]

We are coming to the end of a photographic era...but we can all stop this from happening completely! Shoot Kodachrome!--Pull that old film camera out of the closet. It is hungry for some Kodachrome!

Off-topic, but bring back Kodachrome 25, make it available in 120 format, and i'll be shooting Kodachrome again!

 

[Phormula]

I will rephrase what i said: the thing that bills itself as Lomography, selling crap cameras for far too much money on the internet, is a Big Fraud that should be shunned like the black death.
The thing is that it should not matter at all what you are using.

You are right, Lomography is a way of doing things, Lomo cameras just happened to be around at the time the whole thing started and they happened to be the opposite of what an auto everything consumer camera was at that time.

On the other side, I think that the market is the point where offer and demand meet. If a crap camera sells for the price of a really good one over the web, it is because there is somebody asking that price and somebody else willing to pay that price and the two people agree to do business together. To me it is not a fraud, it is the combination of somebody bold enough to ask that price and somebody lazy (or stupid, if you like) enough to pay that price without checking what the thing he is buying is really worth. But I would say the same for the 8K dollars of a Nikon D3H or for many other things in ordinary life... so I would quote one famous Italian poet when he said "Non ti curar di lor ma guarda e passa", meaning "Don't care about them, just have a look and move on..."

 

[arigram]

I just thought it was cool that they reached over the way here.
They are marketed as weird, experimental, fun gadgets and not "real" cameras, so I don't see them having any effect on the general film use and artistic photography. Only artists that they either know what they are or want to experiment with them, will buy and use them. They are irrelevant to the common man who wouldn't want to experiment or get his hands dirty. A filter in Photoshop is more than enough for most "experimenters".

 

[EASmithV]

Woot, film party! Free kodachrome + processing for all!

 

[alan doyle]

i think lomo is a great thing.
they had some money from me 10 years ago,but i soon found that the russian lca camera was a piece of crap.
i moved on to the olympus xa and the cosina cx and the many other better compact cameras available for a fraction of the lomo lca price on ebay.
but the marketing is fantastic you cannot knock it.
and sorry guys film is not going to survive through sales from apug members.
i know many lomo shooters they shoot tons of film,old film new film any film.
most move on and use ebay,but i do not know any other company doing what those lomographic guys do to promote film use.
i am of the opinion that a 16 year olds lomo snaps are just as important as some 50 year old apug members images shot on his m6 with noctilux lens.

 

[pauliventi]

I think , everyone here has made a good point or two, but what frustrates me is people who almost boycott lomo cameras or hate on people who want to get into film. Most people buying these cameras now grew up with film , unless they where born in the late 90s, so not everyone is tryin to be cool. Some do want to be hip, but the majority are just sick of the same old digital photos.

 

[Phormula]

Puliventi, I definitely agree with you. Just like I get frustrated when I bounce into the film vs. digital war, and I am even more frustrated when I bounce into the film vs. digital war with one of the parties blatantly defending the superiority of their medium against any reasonable evidence, I think we should consider the current Lomographs as another kind of film users and leave them free to do whatever they like, without judging them from top down. The fact that we prefer to spend the money of a Lomo somewhere else does not mean that people who do it are stupid. There is plenty of people out there spending money on bycicles, motorbikes, fishing equipment, tea spoons, ... you name it, and thinking that any money spent on a camera is wasted.

 

[Silverhead]

And of course there's also the Holgawood series that Freestyle is putting out...

 

[Q.G.]

The fact that we prefer to spend the money of a Lomo somewhere else does not mean that people who do it are stupid. There is plenty of people out there spending money on bycicles, motorbikes, fishing equipment, tea spoons, ... you name it, and thinking that any money spent on a camera is wasted.

That's a choice.
Just like paying, say, $8 for a Lubitel (it's true value), and not what? 10, 20 times as much.

If you like spoons, and like to collect them, and like to do that 'on the cheap', why pay many tens times what a spoon would be worth?