If nothing else, here’s my opportunity to show off some dazzling film (analog) cameras. (Somehow, this is not how I remember my old Brownie point-and-shoots of the last century.)

Decorated with pyramids and palms, the Diana F+ Sahara is a beautiful new printed leather edition camera. Using 120 Film, you can experiment with multiple exposures, long exposures and even pinhole shots. So grab your camel, journey over the dunes and pick up yours ….

“Manual cameras are romantic, digital cameras are democratic. … the romanticism of old vintage film and Polaroid cameras. Off colors, wrong focus, vignetting effect–these are what traditional photography defines as a ‘bad picture’; but for lomographers, that isn’t the case. They use these ‘wrong’ settings to their advantage, creating one-of-a-kind photos.”

I discovered lomography in connection with a shop that turned up in my research on Barcelona. A camera shop in the Born district … Barca’s ground zero for this colorful retro image world (and how many minutes do I need to wait before my shots are ready to view?). Instant gratification vs edgy self-realism?

http://microsites.lomography.com/stores/gallery-stores/barcelona

http://www.microsites.lomography.com/about

As this British travelogue advised, “don’t worry about lining up a shot, just start shooting” (as in a movie sequence). “Shoot from the hip … you can’t go wrong.” It shows a small brigade of lomographers striding through local streets and capturing some pretty fun shots. 

The linked sites provide ample evidence of this wonderful LOMO world and an introduction to the beginnings:

“It began with a fateful encounter in the early 1990s, when two students in Vienna, Austria, stumbled upon the Lomo Kompakt Automat – a small, enigmatic Russian camera. Mindlessly taking shots from the hip, and sometimes looking through the viewfinder, they were astounded with the mindblowing photos that it produced – the colours were vibrant, with deep saturation and vignettes that framed the shot – it was nothing like they had seen before! Upon returning home, friends wanted their own Lomo LC-A, igniting a new style of artistic experimental photography that we now know as Lomography!”

There are 10 rules that define ‘lomography’:

1. Take your camera everywhere you go.
2. Use it any time – day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it.
4. Try to shoot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don’t think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
9. Afterwards either.
10. Don’t worry about any rules!

So, although publishing this web site would be a logistic nightmare in an entirely analog world (oh, right … there wouldn’t be web publishing), there is something to like about this technology. And, as I look back at the Brownies of yore, I can start to see the seeds of this post-digital analog revival in the face of the camera~

“You looking at me?”