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LOMOGRAPHY...fans...or mad people?
  • I had a very hard time fighting this lomo fans, talking about their art in their photos. For me lomo is an expendable camera made of plastic, with a fixed lens also made of plastic, with fixed aperture, fixed shutter, fixed focal lenght. So.... isnt that a 80´s and 90´s expendable camera?.... why people is so fucking mad about lomo images with:

    Low latitud high contrast over saturated colors ( only thing i see why people like it, fuji film made study about this in 90´s) chromatic aberration barril distortion high grain size low resolution bad interpretation of reality ( the other issue i see why people like it )

    So the same thing can be done digitally.

    If we had a sensor with those characteristics right now, nobody would buy such a camera, but, is it film then what atract the attention of this hipsters, or the share vision of this "art" emultion.

    LOMOGRAPHY...fans...or mad people?

    Please share your comments.

    Thanks.

  • 24 Replies sorted by
  • everything has it's place.

    you say same thing can be done digitally - many will contend that the art or romance is doing it with film

  • It's a creativity fad. The same people like Instagram. Ya, it has it's place.

  • It's a style of art expression, creativity in it's own way :-)

  • @rambo is right, it 'is' a creativity fad. As are all other art movements. Saying the same thing can be done digitally is to not understand the artistic process in the first place. Logic has little place in art....and on that note, you are Dr Spock, and I claim my $5.

  • Eeverything has its fans.....just see how many people spend countless time collecting stamps or rocks... well, others have a more practical passion, they make low quality pictures with a piece of plastic. Besides, isn't this fixed-setting idea a challenge ? (just like 50mm photography, forces one to think, move his butt).

  • Like always, everything is cool until it becomes mainstream.

    Personally I give respect only to those things that requires skills. I'm not sure about this lomography.

    And as Eric Cartman says... God da*n hipp... hipsters!

  • Why should they be mad for liking something you don't, or you just don't understand.

    People are different, deal with it.

  • Is not that i dont understand them, its not that i dont like the images, its that they belive that their images are the only one to stand out from the rest, when it can be donde digitally.

    But its ok, i dont hate them its just that, i dont understad the passion behind bad quality imagery, behind hippsters.

  • Yeah, but it's just their opinion, why do you have to prove them wrong or anything... It doesn't mean that you can't use what you like because of their opinion or liking, belief. And so what if it can be done digitally? What does that change?

  • I dont want to prove then wrong. I dont like the bad quality, its only my personal view.

  • @endtoxic the hubris brush you paint these lomo users with is very wide. Some of us just appreciate the charm of the process, and the results.

    And, you are wrong about it being created digitally.

    It can be "re-created" digitally, yes. But can it be created with the press of a shutter, no. And that is part of the excitement of lomo. The random refractions, light leaks, uneven focus plane and then add the different characters of manual roll film, and the constraints of a single shutter, maybe even aperture and all these other elements; it's just great fun. Fun because of how it happens, not fun because I can reproduce a look.

  • The interpretation of reality in this type of format, it is actually interesting, my point was that all lomography shooters think all their photos are art an perfect, when its not. Even a normal photographer knows when something is right or wrong. Thats all.

    And i dont paint with hubris brush the lomo users. Its not like that. Its maybe that the people i have discussed this are to fans maybe like i am about my GH camera.

    I am sorry if someone felt bad about my comments, was not my intention.

  • Maybe it's because most passionate people have this tendency to believe that their choices are the only valid choices possible and that everything else is pure sh*t. I know a lot such people, like one who chose a Canon 7D and felt that he just had to consider everything else as trash, so as to overcome his personal anxieties. (Just look at debates between pro-mac and pro-windows).

    So, i think it just happens to be pointless to enter such debates. Lomography fans think they are absolute artists, and @endotoxic thinks they are not artists.... that's the state of things, and it should just be left that way. These debates all too often turn into fights :s

  • If you have 1k$ left and want to record video in an arty way.. get a GH2... everythings else is pure shit. Does not happen very often, but this time its true. ;-))

    I like the dirty aesthetics of lomo, but still the person who handles the cam does the art. Not the cam.

  • It's kind of how I like stepping thru GOpro video frame by frame and extracting little gems of unusual water movement, color, freakish occurrences etc. There was no art to it, it's coincidental, but a whole lotta fun.

  • Photography like video production is having a seismic shift in terms of accessibility. What once was the preserve of craftsmen and women in a dark room with only a faint red light to guide them, is now in the hands of quite literally everyone. The Swankolab app for the iPhone even emulates the darkroom to achieve it's effects on your photos. I for one like Lomography. It's a way of making the ordinary, extraordinary, but most of all it's just plain fun.

  • It's discovering the magic of a beautiful accident.

  • This would require a debate on what is art and what is not, but this is one with no definitive answer... art can be a catherdral that took a whole century to build, or just a white square painted on a white canvas.

    Lomography doesn't make the artist, but if used properly, it can create something that a sufficient amount of people would call "art".

    Besides, why not ? A pencil is extremely dumb in itself... i can draw a stickman with it, or write "ass", but someone else can use it to draw a fantastic landscape. It's not because he used a dumb pencil that he's not an artist.

  • The only thing I don't like about the Lomography-Scene is that some of them claim to have invented accidental imagery. Besides: I like what the digital cinema equivalent of the lomo does: The GoPro seems to be just the same kind of device - just not 1960 but today (so moving images and digital media).

  • @Zeko for me art as i put in this thread :

    http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/37530#Comment_37530

    Art is a way of comunicating emotions, and thats it. Design on the other way, has to have a proper function.

    Modern art, is more general, and has become a big debate today, cos for modern standards anything can be art, and it is not. That more people can make what they call art, in any of its variations its not properly art in its pure form, cos those works that bring no emotion at all, are just tryouts, they are a process of what one day maybe can be called art. A man has a process to follow before becoming artist, and its in all the time he trys, and perfects its craftsmanship, that becomes one, and the recognitions that involve him after trying out diferent works and variations. And are usually those that generate more emotions the ones that are more recognised and become an ART WORK.

    Art is a process not only a work.

    Why can we diferentiate from a good art work, and a bad one. Only in the amount of emotion it generates in you and others, its function is no more than that. Emotions cant be described in words properly cos they are complex, art can bring you a proper description of emotion in diferent ways, that are not properly placed or even not recognised, but afterwards, it says you something.

    Nowdays the word ART is more general, we already have the posibility to create almost any classic art form we know to date, the materials, the technology, the technics and the people are there. Art has change in the way we create it. Technology has make it more easy to comunicate our feelings, though emotions emerge faster and easier.

    Art is already disolving in everything, and a new form, a more naked one, will emerge from all this information that art has become. I think the way will be more holistic, making art a new system, a new dynamic system interpreted by its all, and no more by its units, like, painting, writing, acting, etc. They are now the basics of art, and anyone can participate, thogh, not everyone can make them work properly together.

    Cine is the fist to include various art forms in one, and thats what makes it more interesting and dynamic.

  • Cine is not the first one to combine arts. that's for sure! ; )

    About lomography - some people are sick of the over realistic professional surgical ultra clean imaginary and technological manipulations in this aspect as well, that is heavily "pushed" as the "official" art and professional approach-result.
    It is a reaction to all of this. People get stuck in technology (fads!) and forget why they are doing things in the first place. Over-saturation of "professionals" these days. You need to know your craft of course but just this makes you a craftsman,not an artist.

    "Technology has make it more easy to communicate our feelings, though emotions emerge faster and easier." Really? Through technology more and more "nothingness" emerge faster and easier. (this little site called youtube is a good example of this)

    There is just one thing for sure I don't like about it(lomography) - its commercialization. It is abused by this company that took over the name of the lomo( soviet made, poorly constructed in most cases, and highly unpredictable film camera) and created the so called fad. Just go check their prices, its idiotic to say the least.

    For anybody interested - go get one real lomo, there are thousands of them on ebay for just a change money. The rest is bullshit. On a side note same goes for the tilt shift fad...lensbaby and similar. Easily achievable with DIY projects. Of course not so professional ; )

  • @Luxis yeah, lensbaby fits this niche as well.

    @endotoxic, I think this is more a brand attack than anything else, as what is art and what is not is plainly distinguishable. The majority of photographers are not at all artists. Wedding photographers (i have this conversation a lot) are not artists. Hipsters, unless they produce actual artwork, are not artists. Don't get frustrated by it, and let them think they're doing great amazing stuff, because what they think doesn't matter and only benefits them egotistically. By the way, I am also not an artist.

  • Well, mad, in this kind of way...

    From Woody Allen, in A Lunatic's Tale:

      • "after several months of bliss with Olive that was the equal of anything in the Arabian Nights, I inexplicably grew dissatisfied with this dream woman and developed instead a crush on Billie Jean Zapruder, an airline stewardess whose boyish, flat figure and Alabama twang caused my heart to do flip-flops."