A BBC Documentary: The Lomo Camera, Shoot from the Hip [2004]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JKN2tbSZhg
Screening Notes
Lomography is an international camera movement named after the Russian Lomo analogue camera. It is a compact camera with no autofocus and no flash. It was called the 'Lomo Kompakt Automat'.
The camera is named after the St Petersburg arms manufacturer that developed it in the early Cold War era. It was an adapted version of a Japanese model camera and was deemed an appropriately affordable, hardwearing and easy-to-use gadget for the proletariat and soon went into mass production.
A group of Austrian students took a trip to Czechoslovakia for their education. On their time abroad, one of the group brought a camera and they captured loads of images and developed them back in Austria and we're blown away by the results.
The images the Lomo camera captures are colourful and saturated with a vignetting effect. They felt as if they were seeing the world "through different eyes". The camera had a wide-angle lens which made photographers using the camera deviate from the traditional look-through-the-viewfinder approach to shooting, and its long exposure captured interesting light trails at night time.
As the students showed their images to their peers, more and more students wanted the Lomo camera for themselves and after a couple of months, at least 50 students. Everyone was falling in love with the Lomo Lens and by having one of these cameras, you became part of a club, where the Lomo camera was your membership card. These students travelled with their Lomos around Moscow and New York taking photos of eveything they could which followed their golden rules of lomography.
10 Golden Rules of Lomography:
1. Take your Lomo everywhere.
2. Use it day or night.
3. It's part of your life.
4. Shoot from the hip.
5. Get as close as possible.
6. Don't think.
7. Be fast.
8. Don't try to control it.
9. Be surprised.
10. Ignore all these rules.
Lomo is a multi-faceted company active in science and technology which began running in 1914. Their products include cameras, telescopes, night surveillance equipment, equipment for the Navy and rocket components.
As a lomographer, you are forced to travel. You enter a space you do not know in a space that is new to you. Since you are shooting from the hip, you interact with your subjects directly as you can have face to face interactions.
Vladimir Putin who was deputy prime minister in the 90s was labelled the Godfather to Lomography as it was in his office that a compromise was concluded for a deal between the Austrian and Russia government with the Lomo company, as due to financial reasons, they wanted to discontinue the Lomo Kompakt camera as it was costing them more to produce the camera than what they were selling them for. However, a deal was made so the camera could still be produced in St. Petersburg. From this moment on, lomography was born.
The first camera the students developed with the Lomo company was the super sampler. A camera with four lenses that took four snapshots in series, however, the cameras are now engineered in China. This idea for a camera came from after these Viennan students started lomographic video clips from the Lomo camera which could take 16 photos in about 3 seconds. The four images taken would come out as one print:
Soon enough, there were societies were all across the world with Lomographic cameras with ambassadors in Hong Kong, London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo.
Screening Notes
Lomography is an international camera movement named after the Russian Lomo analogue camera. It is a compact camera with no autofocus and no flash. It was called the 'Lomo Kompakt Automat'.
 |
| Lomo Kompakt Automat |
A group of Austrian students took a trip to Czechoslovakia for their education. On their time abroad, one of the group brought a camera and they captured loads of images and developed them back in Austria and we're blown away by the results.
The images the Lomo camera captures are colourful and saturated with a vignetting effect. They felt as if they were seeing the world "through different eyes". The camera had a wide-angle lens which made photographers using the camera deviate from the traditional look-through-the-viewfinder approach to shooting, and its long exposure captured interesting light trails at night time.
As the students showed their images to their peers, more and more students wanted the Lomo camera for themselves and after a couple of months, at least 50 students. Everyone was falling in love with the Lomo Lens and by having one of these cameras, you became part of a club, where the Lomo camera was your membership card. These students travelled with their Lomos around Moscow and New York taking photos of eveything they could which followed their golden rules of lomography.
10 Golden Rules of Lomography:
1. Take your Lomo everywhere.
2. Use it day or night.
3. It's part of your life.
4. Shoot from the hip.
5. Get as close as possible.
6. Don't think.
7. Be fast.
8. Don't try to control it.
9. Be surprised.
10. Ignore all these rules.
Lomo is a multi-faceted company active in science and technology which began running in 1914. Their products include cameras, telescopes, night surveillance equipment, equipment for the Navy and rocket components.
As a lomographer, you are forced to travel. You enter a space you do not know in a space that is new to you. Since you are shooting from the hip, you interact with your subjects directly as you can have face to face interactions.
 |
The first camera the students developed with the Lomo company was the super sampler. A camera with four lenses that took four snapshots in series, however, the cameras are now engineered in China. This idea for a camera came from after these Viennan students started lomographic video clips from the Lomo camera which could take 16 photos in about 3 seconds. The four images taken would come out as one print:
 |
| Super or Action Sampler Prints |
Pan Chan - "Lomo is not just a camera, it's a culture."
Soon enough, there were societies were all across the world with Lomographic cameras with ambassadors in Hong Kong, London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo.
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