Kicking the Tires

I have spent the past few months tinkering with experimentation and lomography as the two really do equal one. If I can create imperfection/creativity within either the camera / lens or in the film development process, I feel I have achieved my goals.

But does Lomography imply ‘flying by the seat of your pants’? … Not even close. First there are two main types of cameras that Lomography works with. One is your basic Holga or Lomo or cameras such as the Olympus XA series. In those cameras you shoot with ‘auto’ and set you focus by zone. That’s it.

The others are cameras where the photographer has more control over shutter, aperature and even ISO as you can push or pull or purposely shoot low light film in high lighted areas or vise-versa. In either of those two cases you still approach your shots with an unpredicatable and untraditional style. IE: Just snap without focus or speed, or shoot into the sun, or perhaps view obstructions as a positive. On and On……

Take for instance this photo below:

Can you say “Lomographic”? This was shot with no concern for focus. It was composed of negatives that were shot in the evening hours with a low 100 ISO. But more importantly it was shot with an ‘eye’ for composition, and that is something that is not easily taught. Try to teach a person to think creatively, just try.

Or look at the next shot”

Most people would view this as a throw-away but not me. I view this imperfection as perfection. Just look at the stray light etched in. Now when taking this shot, I didn’t know I would obtain this degree of light but because I knew where I was in the roll of film, I could guess what might come of it. So framing the shot and using composition simular to each, let alone exposure….gave me ‘this’ as a final product. I happen to love it. It just looks cool.

Or this shot….

Again, it just works and it has an awesome appearance. The main characters are grouped in the middle …but activity floats 360. Faces appear to just be staring off. Emotion or boredom or an “I don’t care attitude’ …. The three figures are melded together and crop out of the other. A nice blend but notice here, unlike the other two, that there is more clarity and definition found in the faces. So lomography is unpredicatable ….it involves clarity where it might work, and messiness when needed or ambiguity to focus on. So my experimentation continues as I have a gallery of ‘puzzle-type photography in mind. I just need to keep being creative.

Lomography

According to Wikipedia….Lomography is…” a photographic style which involves taking spontaneous photographs with minimal attention to technical details…….and images often exploit the unpredictable, non-standard optical traits of cameras (such as light leaks and irregular lens alignment), and non-standard film processing techniques for aesthetic effect”

Well….. That looks a bit like my style. The other day I was out taking some photos with some 17 year old expired film I purchased thru Ebay from Cheche. I had no idea of how it was going to turn out but on a recent shoot in Nogales (one side is on the US, the other is Mexico), and during the celebration of Little Amal , I came down with the intent of pure experimentation. Whatever came of it, came of it…..

So, armed with that, I put my OM2SP in the bag along with a 55mm and 85mm lens. When I arrived I put on the 85mm and never looked back. I shot with Fomapan 400 (17 year old expired), knowing that since it was BW film, I had a pretty good chance of how it might look.

I shot a few rolls of film….then returned to my studio where I developed. I figured that since I attempted to overexpose a bit during the shooting process, I might also alow a bit more time in the development tank as I did stock with a full 9 minutes of swirling in the chemicals. In hindsight, I might have done 8:30. Now, with the two rolls I shot, I placed only one in the tank as this was an ‘experiment’ after all. In the taking of the images and….in the processing. So with one more roll to expose, I will probably go to 8:30 minutes.

If you look at some of the photos under my latest batch, you can see they turned out well. A few scratches and perhaps just a tad underexposed I would say (thus why I will process the last roll differently), the images are okay.

The point is….they are okay. I like them….I like the dark shadows,…the blackness….the thickness of lines and contrastiness of images. I like the scratches, the lines…..the development etc. The look….I like the look. That is my style. Others will look at it and rip them a part technically…. So be it. I don’t care. These are my images and I like the way they are. I hate perfection. The world is far from perfect and so are our eyes. So why should an image be perfect? Why should we take images into photoshop and digitally craft to seemingly perfection? Why do we distort colors and warp our true visual hue? Why do photographers in utter banality warp images with sharpness and shift away from natural degradation? I don’t know…. But it isn’t me. I am or must be a Lomographic designer….

Egads

I was with a friend today….to whom we just met in physical form as he came up from DC. to Philadelphia. Up until now, we have zoomed…texted, and shared images.

But a realization became apparent; that was he is a ‘digital’ nomad while I am a ‘film nomad’…. Not a lot of either of us blends to the others likeness when it comes to the end product. It is like I prefer an old dusty spy novel from the 1940’s and he prefers the latest from Lee Child or the like.

I eat up on random noise….I enjoy a scratch or two on my film….stray dust particles are a welcome site….water marks from developing is an imperfection element of perfection. Even stray light from an accidentally opened film canisters are a thing of beauty. … To me, sharpness is a bourgeois concept …blur is character. I enjoy shooting ‘into the sun’…. or purposely exposing wrong.…. or speed set too low to create a blur…. expired film…. The list of what can be done continues, not to mention the fuzziness of wide contrasty subjects and a general feel of messiness inherent in film.

My friend…. ‘none of that’….. No, none. He enjoys nose hairs on his images to be perfectly sharp. In fact, ‘sharpness’ is central to his thinking as focus peaking is key. Auto-mode is necessary. Using ‘live view’ and adjusting some toggle switch to set exposure and end product. Or, taking 5x the number of images I take and still end up with one good shot. Now I know he has knowledge, so don’t get me wrong. He has an excellent understanding of photography and I know that includes camera basics as he goes back in photography time, as long as I do.

But somewhere near Albuquerque we each took another turn and haven’t looked back. We both grew up in a film world….both embraced the Digital age as it hit upon us like a surfing wave. But yes, somewhere, sometime…our paths as photographers separated. He kept going down the Digital Nomad path and now has and believes in having the best camera and lens one can get. As he says, you only live once. And yes, I agree. I took the path back to the ‘film nomadic’ approach…..While on occasion I do ‘look back’ to that time we both were in Albuquerque (metaphorically speaking), yet each time I go out to shoot, I grab the film camera. Like him, I want the best….and have deemed my Olympus OM series from the late 70’s to mid 80’s as best; coupled with my vast array of Zuiko lens. And to boot, I do have a Leica MA plus lens if I prefer that route. All film though.

Now, we both go out and find approaches to viewing a scene or subject….we both look for light and wait for the scene to appear. Nothing really different. Just that the nomadic approaches we each have become married to, has been dictated to us almost via osmosis. Digital and Film… equally as different as painting with Acrylic or Oil or Water Color. That is recognized in the painting world, and now, we need to recognize that same difference in photography.