Monday, December 02, 2013

Lomo pictures

Lomo is an unusual camera made in St. Petersburg Russia in the 1980s. It was a small, compakt camera, analog, and had its charms and frustrations. It was built sturdily so as to withstand the Russian winters, but it has a plastic lens that allows for some weird saturation and hues, and light leaks would also sometimes ruin a photo. But the hues were deep and vibrant and the light leaks more often than not made a photograph really unusual.

Collectors re-discovered this camera in the 1990s and were wowed. The camera's production was started up again (in China) and the new Lomo was born.

I used to own an original Russian Lomo and I loved it. It didn't love my pocketbook however, seeing as I had to buy film and have it developed. It got too much for me and I gave my Lomo away.

I still have the photos. Lomography as it's called is a mindset and an approach to photography. The original camera was meant to be simple and to offer access to the common man for photography, so Lomographers just point and shot without fussing or getting too technical. It's a freewheeling kind of fun photography and if I had lots of money I'd do it every day. Here is the link to some real, REAL lomographers and their wonderful and kooky photos. They are really beautiful art. I warn you though, you'll fall in love with the photos and you'll get hooked by the Lomo!

Old Port, Portland Maine


Cold day walking in Portland ME

Cityscape, Portland ME

Studious students studying, with coffee

Downstairs pizza shop lobby, with newspaper

Old farm barn, with really big flag, Gray ME

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Elizabeth, thank you for sharing these pictures. I don't know much about photography and had never heard of lomography before. These pictures to my unskilled eye seem to have a "blurry but crisp" character to them - some places on the picture are crisp and clear, and others are hazy/blurry. I find it makes me want to "search" the photo more for details than a normal picture. I also checked out the lomography website, and found I liked the regular pictures (the pics that had mostly normal colors, but with the slightly blurry characteristic) and also the black and whites, much more than the photos that had those color saturations (pics that were all red, blue, etc). Seems like a very unique type of photography. Thanks again for sharing!

-Carolyn

Elizabeth Prata said...

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks SO much for viewing the photos and checking out the lomography pics on the Lomo site. I'm ticked that you did!

I think the Lomos have a surreal quality to them. I also enjoy the B/W photos. I like the light leaks and spots of color rather than the all-saturated hues, too. Thanks again for visiting