Life and Lens of a plastic Princess

[Poisson Du Jour]

Let's see how the art movement puts the Diana and lomography to creative use.
A quirky exhibition made up from the cute little plastic fantastic is coming to Melbourne on 25th February.

This item in The Age is entertaining reading, reciting the background of lomography and its counter-culture that started in Prague in 1991.

The Diana World Tour arrives at No Vacancy Gallery, 34-40 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne city on February 25 until March 11. Workshops will be held at the gallery on February 26 and March 5. The Customised Clones eBay auction ends on March 31.

 

[Mick Fagan]

I read it in the Age as well, could be an interesting exhibition, I will be endeavouring to see it.

Mick.

 

[Yamaotoko]

Sounds like something to try and venture the family along to, Laura loves Dianas.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

Plastic cameras were discovered by the art world with the original Dianas back in the 70s. Lomography did not start this. There's a gallery in New York that has had a "Crappy Camera Show" since those early days.

My grandpa's mailbox, shot with an original Diana from the 1970s back in 1997

 

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

Lomography is a brand, and I do wish they'd stop trying to say it's a movement. It's just pictorialism for another generation. That said, I still dig it, and I like how much film they're all buying - and I'd pop in to see this if I was on that side of the country, for sure.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

No need to engage in semantics, just go to the exhibition. It's film-based remember?

 

[gandolfi]

Semantics or not - my biggest "problem" is, that there's a world of difference between the original Diana images and the Holga's, called Diana+...


But filmbased photography is allways worth to see...

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Plastic cameras were discovered by the art world with the original Dianas back in the 70s.

Ha! I got my first Krappy Kam in 1960 - http://junkstorecameras.com/EmpireBaby.htm - even at the age of 7 3/4's I was très artiste.

If I remember the story, a photography instructor at some university was getting royally PO'ed at his students for being gear-obsessed and went out and bought a few grocery store bags of Dianas, handed them out to the class and told them they could put their Nikannontaxes away for the rest of the semester.

So now students compete on who's camera is the crapiest. My niece went out and spent $100 on a Diana clone at Keeble & Suchat this semester. Rudolph and Kingslake wept. So did I, I would gladly have sold her a genuine vintage Diana for $250.

It is probably a good thing it was a clone. Vintage Dianas are made of such bad plastic that it literally crumbles in one's hands.

 

[nhemann]

I entered the Krappy Kamera show this year - but apparently my shots were not Krappy enough. I'm definitely looking forward to heading over there and seeing the photos that out Krapped mine...

 

[lapzod]

One of my first film cameras I brought was a Diana F+...and I loved it, it's what got me in to film photography.
The next step was a Canon AE1-P, and even recently a Kiev 4...

I understand the...annoyance? at the lomo brand, but I don't think it's an entirely bad thing...I showed my mum my Diana F+ and she laughed, and remembered when she had one as a kid.

Since moving on from it, it now sits proudly on my wall unit, as a cool looking camera (it glows in the dark!)

I'll drop by the exhibition. It's nice to see the lomo tour hit Australia.

 

[gandolfi]

I showed my mum my Diana F+ and she laughed, and remembered when she had one as a kid.

.

that's my point: she didn't! She had an original Diana.

Two different cameras - different lenses, and with very different look...

(personally I think the Diana actually "just" is a Holga in disguise...)

 

[lapzod]

She had an original Diana, I don't, but it brought back the memories from when she was using it.

I don't doubt that the Diana+ is different, and in fact, I've been trying to track down an "original" one, but don't really want to fork out the money for it that people online are trying to sell them for.

(I bought the Diana+ purely because all my mates had the Holga, and I wanted something that at least looked different)

I'm just kinda bummed that I wasn't around for a lot of the plastic camera era

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

My sister tells me I played around with plastic cameras in the early 1970s (along with using tripods as battering rams...), but typical of her she has "no idea" what they were. Mentioned "Dianas?" but it drew a blank. I'd love to know what it was.

 

[Vaughn]

From one of the "original" Diana Cameras -- a thrift store buy a couple years ago for 75 US cents.

My boys on a boiler from an old shipwreck, North Jetty, Humboldt Bay. Expired Tech-pan. Platinum print.

Alex, Oregon Coast, expired film (somehow the numbers from the backing papers bled onto the film over time.) Silver gelatin print.

A fun camera! Have a great time at the show!

 

[frontdrive34]

There was a story about the exhibition on the Sunday afternoon ABC arts program last weekend. Might well be online for viewing by now.