This was initially posted at my website last year. Yesterday, one of my students emailed me asking about a Holga. So I decided to repost this little bit about Lomography.
Looking at life through the digital lens can only do so much for me. My love and fetish for Lomo and toy cameras in general is growing and reaching new levels of obsession.
What is Lomo? In 1991 a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo Kompakt Automat when on holiday in Prague. This mass-produced Soviet camera was so cheap and easy to use that they shot rolls of film, ignoring the established rules of "good" photography. The resulting snaps were often odd to look at, out of focus and, due to the character of the Lomo lens, garishly coloured. But they were wonderfully fresh. The craze for Lomo spread so fast that when, in 1996, the St Petersburg manufacturers threatened to stop making the camera, Lomographers stepped in to guarantee all future sales.
Today the Lomographic Society has embassies across the globe with Lomography.com as its base. Hundreds participate in international Lomo events and add to the ever-growing LomoWorldArchive.
Currently, these are some of the toy cameras that I currently have, or at least have access to:
- Holga
- Colour Splash
- Lomo Meccano
- Action Sampler
- Oktomat
- Lomo Fish Eye
Do take a moment and check out my lomo home at www.lomohomes.com/inflict