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

[removed account4]

hi art
i think a lot of people don't get today's kids LOL
im not too old ( well to a kid, i am ancient ) ...
and i am absolutely clueless
i sort of get where some of the people who are anti-trendy
anti-lomo, anti-holga, anti-digtal, anti-fun yadda yadda yadda are coming from.
and while i "get it" i do my best to ignore it. its been loud static for decades..

 

[MattKing]

John and Art.
I have mixed feelings about Lomography - some parts wonderful, other parts frustrating - and have some concerns about which way some of the trends are trending.
But the fun part - that is where Lomography (and others) are great.
Along with the curiosity and creativity and playfulness and .....

 

[blockend]

Why does it not surprise me old men are clueless about today's kids.....

Why does it not surprise me some people start threads about how fashionable and original they are, and how out of touch everyone else is, and no one replies to them. Perhaps shooting with a camera made out of Lego is the epitome of coolness, or perhaps it's desperate attention seeking for the aesthetically challenged? Who can possibly say?

 

[faberryman]

Why does it not surprise me old men are clueless about today's kids.....

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."--Mark Twain.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Why does it not surprise me some people start threads about how fashionable and original they are, and how out of touch everyone else is, and no one replies to them. Perhaps shooting with a camera made out of Lego is the epitome of coolness, or perhaps it's desperate attention seeking for the aesthetically challenged? Who can possibly say?

As the OP has pointed out, we're "senile old white men", we can't possibly "get it". We should be pitied, not scorned....
I'm just glad of the "ignore" function.

 

[4season]

I'm enjoying these books quite a bit, if mostly for the sheer enthusiasm: They staged some pretty impressive events!

https://shop.lomography.com/en/lomolife-book

I don't mind the idea of trying some non-Lomography box cameras, but in my experience (from the western USA) I'd probably have to make a special trip out to one of the antique malls to find something like a Kodak Hawkeye. Don't think I've ever seen an Agfa or Zeiss box camera, much less a Fujipet. Postwar USA was the land of plenty and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if a lot of cheaper cameras simply got tossed out with the trash. Probably easier to find postwar Japanese stuff here than low- to mid-line European goods.

 

[canuhead]

can we just call it low-fi photography vs Lomography ?

 

[blockend]

can we just call it low-fi photography vs Lomography ?

Low-fi, snap-shooting, whatever. Calling it Lomography is as pretentious as calling 35mm Leicagraphy.

 

[removed account4]

i am completely offended at such outrageous comments !

 

[removedacct1]

can we just call it low-fi photography vs Lomography ?

How about we stop applying labels to these different styles of photo-making? Maybe then we will stop being so judgemental and sneering at technology that doesn't fit certain ideas of what "quality" tools and photo techniques are. All cameras a just tools. The tools don't matter nearly as much as what comes out of the creative use of the tool. Do you suppose a gardener who creates a spectacular garden expects to be praised/evaluated based on what kind of shovel he/she used??

 

[canuhead]

How about we stop applying labels to these different styles of photo-making?

I'm all for just saying we practice photography as gear really shouldn't matter I feel like I'm going to hurl if I hear Lomography one. more. time lol

 

[removed account4]

i think that is a terrible idea!
if we just say photography and no mention of what kind &c
how are we supposed to know who to throw under the bus ???

 

[dutchsteammachine]

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 ?



i don't get it ..
they buy a camera ( some say expensive and overpriced camera )
they use film
they get prints made or make them themselves
they typically buy more film than the people who complain about them ...
yet people complain ... because they don't use the right kind of camera
or film or technique or ...

i know, its a real drag !

The plan of Lomography all along was to get young people to buy film, in an attempt to stretch the availability of the medium a bit longer before all manufactures collapse.

The two things I do like about lomography , is that they started to produce a long dead film format, 110 film. And the Petzval lenses.

I used to really dislike lomography... now I no longer mind it. If people are having fun, who cares? I think lomo camera's are a waste of money but whatever. The more film sells the better.

 

[canuhead]

i think that is a terrible idea!
if we just say photography and no mention of what kind &c
how are we supposed to know who to throw under the bus ???

hmmm, you do have a point ))

and when you mention bus, do you mean big yellow ones that carry people or the german version that invoked nostalgia and longoing in people who used to one one or want to own one ? I miss my water leaker

 

[blockend]

The plan of Lomography all along was to get young people to buy film, in an attempt to stretch the availability of the medium a bit longer before all manufactures collapse.

You make it sounds as if Lomography were a charity! Lomography is a business. If there was no money to be made from serving a niche sector they wouldn't be doing it. If more people were buying film from established manufacturers who actually make the stuff, there'd be no need for branding exercises like Lomography. As far as I know the company don't manufacture anything except packaging. Nothing wrong with turning a profit, but let's not confuse business with philanthropy. Lomography's success has been to blur the boundaries and make taking photographs on film a form of fashionable re-enactment.

 

[removed account4]

hmmm, you do have a point ))

and when you mention bus, do you mean big yellow ones that carry people or the german version that invoked nostalgia and longoing in people who used to one one or want to own one ? I miss my water leaker

IDK i am thinkig of a big vehicle that can squish someone. no clue what brand or color like "public transit"
or a charter bus ..

==
doesn't sound like that at all. no one is suggesting lomography is or ever was a charity. they saw a way to
market a medium on its death-bed and they have done a great job doing it.
and i am guessing at lomography.com every 4ththread isn't about proper exposure or densitometry
or how "having a good time" is sending the wrong message to people who want ot have a fun hobby/distraction.
photography doesn't need to be so serious...

 

[blockend]

doesn't sound like that at all. no one is suggesting lomography is or ever was a charity. they saw a way to
market a medium on its death-bed and they have done a great job doing it.

The plan of Lomography all along was to get young people to buy film, in an attempt to stretch the availability of the medium a bit longer before all manufactures collapse

Lomography predates the contraction and demise of mass film use. It wasn't conceived as dutchsteammachine suggests, as a plan to stretch the availability of film. Those are consequences of a business marketing strategy to make quirky cameras fashionable and offer the company a profit.

The evangelical hype is what irks some of us, the idea that Lomography is singlehandedly keeping film alive when they don't manufacture a single emulsion or design a camera (the very things that enable film photography), that snap shooting on basic cameras was an invention of the Lomography company when it comprised the majority of photographs ever taken, and Lomography has somehow put fun into photography that had died out if it ever previously existed. Those things are palpably untrue, yet people continue to propagate the myth.

The fact enthusiast magazines pushed photography as an earnest pursuit requiring expensive equipment and an extraordinary degree of skill, was never a position endorsed by the general public who were happy to point, shoot and pick their prints up from a high street lab, in exactly the way the Lomography company promotes as their own invention. Lomography's business supporters underline their hubris by insisting anyone who gets it is a fun loving, youthful and creative sensibility, and those who aren't completely on board are gear obsessed stick in the mud's ungrateful for Lomography's charitable attempts to keep film photography alive. For those of us who have enjoyed democratic, mass produced photography based on simple cameras for decades, such claims are breath-taking in their presumption. My sense of humour is fully intact, as is my knowledge of marketing and photographic history.

 

[4season]

As far as I know the company don't manufacture anything except packaging.

In terms of owning factories, you are probably correct. But nevertheless instrumental in keeping the Lomo camera tradition alive, and perhaps a key reason why Zenit still makes photographic equipment. According to Lomo Life, the Lomo factory basically gave them the blueprints to the LC-A and their blessing to have camera production resumed elsewhere (and I think the world is a tiny bit richer for it).

 

[blockend]

instrumental in keeping the Lomo camera tradition alive,

What does that mean? Lomo compact cameras were a Soviet attempt to ape the fashion for similar cameras in the West. Their claim to fame is they sold at a considerably cheaper price than their non-planned economy equivalents. Russian cameras sold in Western Europe based on price alone, and consumers accepted out of date design and questionable quality control as a consequence of their very low cost. The Soviets needed Western currency, and budget cameras were one of the ways of acquiring it. I don't know how that denotes "a tradition" unless its for bargain basement manufacturing in a failing political economy. Re-framing cheap consumer goods as desirable is a polemic in the efficiency of communism as a means of satisfying photographic needs (which it clearly is not), or a first world, post modern exercise in nostalgia for people who never endured its exigency as producer or consumer.

 

[Ste_S]

Lomography predates the contraction and demise of mass film use. It wasn't conceived as dutchsteammachine suggests, as a plan to stretch the availability of film. Those are consequences of a business marketing strategy to make quirky cameras fashionable and offer the company a profit.

The evangelical hype is what irks some of us, the idea that Lomography is singlehandedly keeping film alive when they don't manufacture a single emulsion or design a camera (the very things that enable film photography), that snap shooting on basic cameras was an invention of the Lomography company when it comprised the majority of photographs ever taken, and Lomography has somehow put fun into photography that had died out if it ever previously existed. Those things are palpably untrue, yet people continue to propagate the myth.

The fact enthusiast magazines pushed photography as an earnest pursuit requiring expensive equipment and an extraordinary degree of skill, was never a position endorsed by the general public who were happy to point, shoot and pick their prints up from a high street lab, in exactly the way the Lomography company promotes as their own invention. Lomography's business supporters underline their hubris by insisting anyone who gets it is a fun loving, youthful and creative sensibility, and those who aren't completely on board are gear obsessed stick in the mud's ungrateful for Lomography's charitable attempts to keep film photography alive. For those of us who have enjoyed democratic, mass produced photography based on simple cameras for decades, such claims are breath-taking in their presumption. My sense of humour is fully intact, as is my knowledge of marketing and photographic history.

I think you're stretching here. There isn't any evangelical hype, nor do they claim they invented snap shooting with toy cameras.
As far as I can make out*, they generally promote film photography with a leaning to toy cameras. That they also stuck with film when people where jumping ship for digital should be applauded.


*This is from following the Lomo magazine/blog which occasionally has some good articles
https://www.lomography.com/magazine

 

[blockend]

I think you're stretching here. There isn't any evangelical hype, nor do they claim they invented snap shooting with toy cameras.
As far as I can make out*, they generally promote film photography with a leaning to toy cameras. That they also stuck with film when people where jumping ship for digital should be applauded.


*This is from following the Lomo magazine/blog which occasionally has some good articles
https://www.lomography.com/magazine

My point is their followers believe this to be the case, as this thread is evidence of. As I said, they don't make a single emulsion, so the common claim that "Lomography has saved film" is ill informed.

There may come a point where existing production capacity is taken over by the company, but apart from a few special effect films and re-runs of toy/joke/simple cameras, their contribution to film photography has been to swap the box on an existing product. If that means making film less expensive and boutique, I applaud them. There's not much evidence this is the case. The way to save film is to buy it from the people who make it.

 

[removed account4]

the dire consequences of selling repackaged film and lomo cameras are what exactly ?
they get people interested in film and keep labs .. labbing ?

yup, they existed in the 90s .. by the 2000s they had people interested in what they were doing, a website
and began building and selling out of brick and mortar stores. just as kodak was starting to look ike a dead goldfish you'd flush down the toilet.
IDK, i guess the problem is they have people shooting film like they were making cellphone snapshots. IDK, maybe i'm wrong, but
i think that's a lot better for the film industry as a whole than the serious weekender who spends 9 hours exposing 2 sheets of film on
a camera bought for 3$ at a swap meet on film horded 15 years before.

i'm guessing it wasn't the largeformat weekender that saved the film industry.

who cares if they repackage film ...
j+c, bregger, freestyle photowarehouse just to name a few do or did it,
and same with paper, i don't think LODIMA has their own factory ..

if it is the $$ involved the original KODAK cost $245 in 1885, which is over $6600 today
LOMO cameras are cheap by comparison !

 

[removedacct1]

Lomography predates the contraction and demise of mass film use.

The evangelical hype is what irks some of us, the idea that Lomography is singlehandedly keeping film alive when they don't manufacture a single emulsion or design a camera (the very things that enable film photography), that snap shooting on basic cameras was an invention of the Lomography company when it comprised the majority of photographs ever taken, and Lomography has somehow put fun into photography that had died out if it ever previously existed. Those things are palpably untrue, yet people continue to propagate the myth.

Exactly. The whole “lomography agenda” mythology is a gross distortion of the facts. Nine times out of ten, when I read some sneering, dismissive remark about The L Word, it’s fueled mainly by a defensive snobbery geared to belittle a photographic democratizing tool that is more closely aligned to Kodak’s Box Brownie than the critics would care to admit.

 

[blockend]

who cares if they repackage film ...
j+c, bregger, freestyle photowarehouse just to name a few do or did it,
and same with paper, i don't think LODIMA has their own factory ..

The difference between Lomography and the numerous rebrands that preceded it, is the others made their own brand less expensive than the original. If you'd care to cite examples of Lomography providing cheaper film than the kosher item (in store promotions not withstanding), I'm listening.

 

[blockend]

i think that's a lot better for the film industry as a whole than the serious weekender who spends 9 hours exposing 2 sheets of film on
a camera bought for 3$ at a swap meet on film horded 15 years before.

I shoot a film a day on average, more or less, taken over the year. I admit to being a film hoarder, all fresh stock, because companies keep withdrawing my favourite emulsions.