Lomography - this is how you inspire the younger generation into film

4season · Dec 16, 2017

Actually, I think the Lomography "magazine" as a whole does a fine job of presenting analog photography as something interesting, accessible and fun. At first glance, the articles and images look like a mishmash of fine art, non-art, travelogues, craft projects and cat pictures. And they are, but they're unified by a love of image-making. The format encourages sharing, but not bickering.or forming cliques. Nor does it encourage one-upmanship. This makes for a pretty inviting atmosphere.

wyofilm · Dec 16, 2017

4season said:
This makes for a pretty inviting atmosphere.

That is the way I see it.

AgX · Dec 16, 2017

wyofilm said:
They also sell a wide selection of mount adapters of standard real-life, serious cameras.

If I remember right they also offered a late Zenit model for some time. But, in contrast to recent endeavours by others they never announced an own SLR.

blockend · Dec 16, 2017

guangong said:
For one of my best friends, the late Louis Stettner, his pictures were not the result of “happy accidents “, but rather the results of highly trained and skillful eyes, hands and camera to produce a meaningful composition. This can also be said of several other of my friends who excelled in street photography. They did not depend on accidents since most co,posed full frame. Waiting for a “happy accident “ is like the Chinese farmer waiting for a rabbit to run into a stump because it happened once before.

If you look at Magnum's contact sheets book, you'll see the "decisive moment" depended on multiple frames of near misses. The photographers knew what they were aiming for, and were on top of their technique, but reality rarely complies. The winners were surrounded by losers, but imagine how many rolls of film were expended by the same, equally skilled photographer with nothing to show for the effort. The SP genre is 0.01% hits for the exceptionally talented, a few a year at best. Most people are content with a handful of truly exceptional images in a lifetime.

blockend · Dec 16, 2017

E. von Hoegh said:
Also promote flaws and deficiencies as valuable assets.

That goes back to the pictorial movement of the c19th. Even that early in photography's technical development it was decided the medium was too objective for some tastes, purely representational and of no interest to "real" artists. So they made photographs look like paintings. The medium is still split along those lines. For some it's about Zeiss glass, 50 mp sensors and files the size of a set of encyclopaedias, for others its box cameras and purple film.

For those with an interest in the print, itself a rare phenomenon today, an image enlarged from a Holga or a Hasselblad offers similar challenges. Either way I suspect most film shots are scanned and viewed through the medium of binary code.

Craig75 · Dec 16, 2017

jnanian said:
no clue why posting film stuff teens and 20somethings are doing is trolling.

if he put a link to young people in kodachrome magazine or a kodak blog, would it be the same ?

No it wouldnt

removed account4 · Dec 16, 2017

Craig75 said:
No it wouldnt

that's kind of weird ..

Craig75 · Dec 16, 2017

jnanian said:
that's kind of weird ..

Would the discussion have gone the same way using this https://www.ilfordphoto.com/shooting-spring-alaska-film/ ?

faberryman · Dec 16, 2017

Craig75 said:
Would the discussion have gone the same way using this https://www.ilfordphoto.com/shooting-spring-alaska-film/ ?

Obviously shooting Ilford is not cool and will not sustain a millennial's interest in film. It is entirely too predictable so there is no chance that artistic results will spontaneously occur.

removed account4 · Dec 16, 2017

Craig75 said:
Would the discussion have gone the same way using this https://www.ilfordphoto.com/shooting-spring-alaska-film/ ?

sure it might have gone the same way if there were people
commenting in-thread who had some sort of a grudge against
people who use ilford paper and film and made disparging remarks about them, their cameras and techniques ...

its amazing how tribal photography is ...

Craig75 · Dec 16, 2017

faberryman said:
Obviously shooting Ilford is not cool and will not sustain a millennial's interest in film. It is entirely too predictable so there is no chance that artistic results will spontaneously occur.

In the lomo article hes using kodak!

faberryman · Dec 16, 2017

Craig75 said:
In the lomo article hes using kodak!

Yes, a Olympus Stylus Epic and Kodak Portra. So the only thing cool about it is the RV and snowboarding? So maybe lomography isn't about lomography?

removed account4 · Dec 16, 2017

faberryman said:
Yes, a Olympus Stylus Epic and Kodak Portra. So the only thing cool about it is the RV and snowboarding? So maybe lomography isn't about lomography?

exactly ... photography
so why is it the OP is a troll ?

link to an article about photography,
on a website dedicated to photography ..

next thing you know
someone is going to post a link to a video series
by a well known tintypest and that person will be called a troll too ..

4season · Dec 16, 2017

I wasn't aware of Ilford's magazine, and it looks like they're trying to tap into a similar vibe as Lomography (they even feature an image of a Zenit camera on the site!). But at least for now, Lomography sets themselves apart because they're not just selling a brand, but a lifestyle and sense of community.

blockend · Dec 16, 2017

4season said:
Lomography sets themselves apart because they're not just selling a brand, but a lifestyle and sense of community.

As I said 84 posts ago, they're both. Their products are fair game, as are any other manufacturer's.

The lifestyle/community stuff promotes photography - though it may not be to everyone's taste. For me the cameras are outrageously overpriced examples of the triumph of marketing over substance. Frankly I'm surprised anyone still buys them after first wave of novelty, when quirkiness is offered by gear as diverse as a Zeiss Ikon Tengor box camera, a Kiev rangefinder, or a disposable. That leads me to believe ownership is not about photography, quirky or otherwise. In the bigger picture there's more to worry about than the attraction of functionally mediocre cameras in the youth fashion market.

baachitraka · Dec 16, 2017

When given to nice hands...

Craig75 · Dec 16, 2017

jnanian said:
exactly ... photography
so why is it the OP is a troll ?

link to an article about photography,
on a website dedicated to photography ..

next thing you know
someone is going to post a link to a video series
by a well known tintypest and that person will be called a troll too ..

OP is trolling because he just puts a link - makes a statement regarding that link- yet doesnt give any reason why he thinks this statement is true and then sits back and watches everyone argue the toss over his statement / lomography.

That's textbook trolling.

and to be fair OP has a point because as Rook pointed out enough people made comments who didnt even appear to have read the article - just saw word lomography and thought oh yeah I know what this will be and took the bait.

removed account4 · Dec 16, 2017

textbook trolling ?
LOL ok...

Ste_S · Dec 16, 2017

The sniffiness in this thread about Lomography is disappointing, it's like something I'd read on DP Review forums.

I tend to judge photos, on you know, the actual photo rather than what light box was used

blockend · Dec 16, 2017

Ste_S said:
The sniffiness in this thread about Lomography is disappointing, it's like something I'd read on DP Review forums.

I tend to judge photos, on you know, the actual photo rather than what light box was used

If only Lomography shared your enthusiasm for the final result over the camera. Lo-fi photography shouldn't mean a camera held together with gaffer tape that may fall apart on your third film. There are some beautifully made cameras with meniscus lenses, two element lenses and triplets that are a delight to use. There may be, in fact there probably are people who want to buy functionally inadequate but expensive cameras because of a caché they perceive in ownership, but I reckon there are more who want weird, romantic, impressionistic results but who don't know which cameras (cheap or expensive) provide them. That's a lack of information problem combined with a confidence issue. There's no buzz in buying a dusty old box with an unpronounceable name, even though that box may be exactly what the person is looking for.

I'm not anti-lo-fi, I was all over the reprint of Nancy Rexroth's unobtainable Iowa, and shoot optically primitive equipment much of the time. I am for sharing information that is objectively authentic and free of hype.

macfred · Dec 16, 2017

baachitraka said:
When given to nice hands...

Hipster stuff ... No, seriously, I like them all very much - remarkable work !

Craig75 · Dec 16, 2017

jnanian said:
textbook trolling ?
LOL ok...

yes and i even gave a reason why

Ste_S · Dec 16, 2017

blockend said:
If only Lomography shared your enthusiasm for the final result over the camera

Not sure what your point is here ? Just checked on the #dianaf feed on Instagram and there's a fair few images I like *shrugs*
Can the camera shoot good photos ? Yup.

removed account4 · Dec 16, 2017

Craig75 said:
yes and i even gave a reason why

LOL
i guess ...

blockend · Dec 16, 2017

Ste_S said:
Not sure what your point is here ? Just checked on the #dianaf feed on Instagram and there's a fair few images I like *shrugs*
Can the camera shoot good photos ? Yup.

Of course they can take good pictures, I used one back in the 1970s. They were sold with rubber snakes and whoopee cushions.

Lomography - this is how you inspire the younger generation into film

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