A Singaporean [Quitter] in Maesai

There is not much updates of Thailand as I'm stuck here in Singapore. So decided to write something about photography.

For those who are not sure about Lomography. You can read more about it here.

I could say recently there is a lot of fad in these analog toy cameras and its cool to know people picking up on shooting film again. I am not going to discuss the pros and cons of shooting digital or analog. I think my idol Oleg Novikov does a better job in explaining and summarising how I think about it too.

Recently I shot an event with my Diana F+ and instanx mini back. Its was a real fun experience to have the photo printed on the spot (polaroid style) and thrown onto a white table. I've scanned the photos and some friends saw it on FB (first nine shots of the album) and kind of wonder why my skill is so lousy this time (a lot of the pics were either low in contrast, OOF, underexposed, overexposed, colour cast and all the bad stuff you want to avoid in genereal photography).

Its hard to explain but I kind of deliberately want to have all these flaws as nowadays, all the photos I see are so poster perfect that it kinds of bores me. The main reason I dived into lomo is that I find it as an interesting new photography medium for shooting personal stuff. Commercially, I'm not going to shoot like that (maybe I will if the client insists) but it does makes me feel more attached to the photographs I made because of the process of taking them.

Firstly the camera looks like a toy and it is a toy camera! Which makes it a topic to talk about. Which makes them more relax and willing to get shot. And with all the gadgets it could attached (fisheye, ring flash and color gels), the people involved started to interact with the camera tool. Some actually requested to be shot with a certain colour gel!

Second is the instant result on paper. Physically holding a photo that was just taken a minute ago. Its a bit different then the digital screen as they could passed it along and comment about it and try new stuff.

So I had great fun that day. And the people who got their photos taken were excited too. Even though some photos did not turned out as expected but the whole process was so much fun and enjoyable.

So how do I feel about Lomo (short of Lomography) Fad?? I think generally its an interesting medium but the constant marketing of new "clones" of the same camera bores me. It becomes another "I have this, you do not have this model". I rather they come up with some new cameras that have different features or sets that could make I could experiment more. The horizon Kompact looks interesting....

And too me, the Lomography motto of "don't think, just shoot" applies only by situation. And I see some people who post their photos on the lomo site (most of them actually) are just whacking and shooting for the sake of hoping to get a good shot. Wasting film and money! Even the photos in the book that comes with the camera seems a bit trying.

In short, its like painting Picassa without understanding the correct technique of painting., which will do no good to one's photography skill (be it artistically or technically).

So I will still shoot with these toy cameras but the results I get will be mostly for my personal viewing. For those who wants to try a new and refreshing shooting experience. You should try it too!

PS: All photos taken with Diana F+ or Diana Mini with Lucky 100 BW film