I’m one of those people who loves to photograph the random objects that sometimes end up in some place they’re not supposed to be. Like this book on the sidewalk across the street from my house. You know how it is. You see some “fish out of water” and wonder how it came to be there, who left it, will they come back to look for it? The sorts of questions you’ll rarely find answers to, but which open up the opportunity for you to give your imagination a little exercise.
When I worked at a photo lab, I used to find it funny that some people took photos so infrequently that they’d have both Easter and Christmas photos on the same roll of film when they brought it in for development.
Guess what? I found one of my cameras, loaded with film, that contained photos from *cough* THREE years ago.
During my trip to England in 2006, I went to a camera fair. Essentially, I picked my traveling dates based on the dates of the camera fair in a town called Wolverhampton. I don’t reeeeeeally know why I did that – I definitely didn’t have extra money to spend on cameras! I loved it though, because I got to see a lot of cameras in person which I’d only seen online. I finally did buy a camera, the Agfa Isola I. The dealer knocked of a few quid because it was near the end of the day and he was looking to unload some of his goods.
Before purchasing this Agfa, I had another camera that was quite similar (a knock-off?) called a Dacora Digna (see some photos I took years ago with it here.) Maybe I didn’t need the Agfa, but I’m just a sucker for inexpensive little medium format cameras!
Real quick, here are some cool features of the Agfa Isola I:
•”Telescoping lens”
• The lens folds somewhat flat when not in use, and with a simple twist, pops out so you can take photos.
(I made a cheesy animated GIF to illustrate this action)
And the photos? Drumroll please…
Any time I happened to remember about this camera and the photos I’d taken on it, I had a definite memory of photographing my friend Kelsey at Food Not Bombs, wearing a striped sweater. Beyond that, I had no idea what might be on that film. So, three years after the fact, I guess I was right about the details of the photo I’d taken of Kelsey! And I apparently also photographed the Cannon Center.
I think it’ll be a decent little camera medium format camera to tote around with me some times, as well of a reminder of a really lovely day I had when I visited England that one time.
Ahhhhhh. The much beloved, and the much maligned, Lomo LC-A.
Oh you, Lomo Kompakt Automat.
A Little History About Me and Lomo
Let me give you a little Shoot With Personality history. Before there WAS a Shoot With Personality (well, that is to say, I am Shoot with Personality – but before I had a site called that…) I, as a developing photographer, owned a Lomo LC-A. Or two? Yeah, I guess I broke my first one, and it had some issues anywayz…I got the first one in early 2002? Judging from the photos of my now 8 year old niece sitting in her high chair that were on the first roll, 2002 seems about right. It was awhiiiile ago, but I believe I got mine from a seller in the Ukraine, from ebay. I wouldn’t have paid more than $75 for it, which is about what I paid for the second model I got the next year, also from a Ukrainian ebay listing. The best part of buying packages from the former USSR, btw, is the packaging. You wait a month for it to arrive, then when it does, it’s wrapped in brown paper and tied up with what I assume is string made from yak fur. SO old-world! SO charming!
I don’t even show pictures from those early days around too much, because they were very much a time of “development.” But I recently showed them to a photographer friend, and he saw some merit in my development period… If you care to see some of those older photos – really, some as old as 2001 and 2002- you can see them in my good ole Lomohome on the good ole Lomographic Society site (that “society”, as many things I mention in this blog, is another discussion for another day.)
What’s a Lomo?
I used to have a little description of the LC-A on the Lomo section of the OLD version of the Shoot With Personality site. It said:
What’s a lomo?
When most people talk about a “Lomo”, they are referring to the Lomo LC-A. The Lomo Compact Automat is a relatively small, Russian-made camera. Most people who use an LC-A do so because of the camera’s light-gathering abilities, which make it particularly suited to low-light situation”
I guess that’s a pretty good way to put it. It’s a smallish camera. It’s got zone focusing – meaning you don’t foc us the lens by looking through it or anything, you focus it by estimating the distance from the camera to what you’re photographing, and adjusting the little focusing lever on the side. Yeah, it’s in meters. We imperial system folks have to get used to making the conversions in our mind – thankfully, there are only those few distance settings to choose from, one of which involves ∞ symbol. You don’t need to know how meters and feet translate when the setting is “infinity.” You just slide it to that setting when you could describe what you’re photographing as “FAR AWAY!”
The actual “big deal” about this “little camera” (aren’t I funny?) is the lens – It has some specific characteristics that drew a lot of photographers (and non-photographers alike. Heh.) Vignetting. Distortion at the edges. Vivid colors. Add those to the aforementioned “blurry on purpose” – many of us pridefully argued with photo lab technicians, or looked down our noses at the lab workers for not being evolved as we were, because they would either not print some of the negatives on our film because they thought the photos were mistakes, or they’d print them and very gravely tell us that something was wrong with our cameras. Ha!
I actually have made a lot of friends across the world, due to owning the LC-A. At the time when I first acquired the LC-A, I frequented a couple of Lomo users sites. And, honestly, I’m sure some of those friends were there as Lomographic Society detractors. I know at least one was…But I did photographic print swaps with Lomo users, and a couple of “double exposure” projects with a guy in Serbia – where he put a roll through his camera, sent it to me, and I put the same roll through my Lomo. And vice versa. It was a spicy little photo community with which to be involved, before the days of Flickr.
The Exit of Lomo from My Life. And the Re-entry…
But, I picked up more photographic skills as time went by. I found other types of camera better suited to my photographic needs. I picked up better pocket-sized, partially automated cameras (Dear Olympus XA: You will have your time in the blogsphere spotlight soon enough. I promise! Love, Amanda) The LC-A was something I felt as if I’d outgrown.
So I grew tired of my LC-A and, more specifically, the “Lomographic movement” a few years back and decided to put it out to pasture. Literally. My friend Kent was going back to Illinois and on tour with a band, so I thought he should have it. Never looked back. Not really. Not until maybe this summer. I wrote Kent and asked if I could borrow the camera back. I was halfway expecting the camera to not exist any more – after all, it was a ’91 model, I had dropped it so much that part of the plastic of the top plate was long gone, and three years is an awfully long time.
Hi Kent! Taken in 2006, about a month or so before Kent bid Memphis adieu, with the very Lomo LC-A in question.
But, low and behold, the camera still exists! Kent is a gem of a fellow and a real champ, so he of course said I could borrow the camera back. What is more, I have now put a roll of film through it, and the camera WORKS! OH HAPPY DAY! I was reunited with this old friend on a week and a half before Christmas. PERFECT timing for taking photos with a camera that yields such characteristically rich colors and Christmas IS quite a colorful time of year. So guesssss what I did?
You guessed it! You know me too well! I took a lot of pictures of shopwindows decorated for Christmas! And I picked things that I thought looked nice and stereotypically Lomo: a vintage store near my home. Funky, ain’t it?
And more results from this first roll through the LC-A:
So What’s The Conclusion on Lomo?
Ya know what? I’m liking having this camera back in my life. Sure, I have plenty of other cameras, even other pocketable ones. Ones that have nicer lenses and ones that you can actually focus rather than just guessing. But, goshdarnit, I like this LC-A. And, ya know what else? I’m a better photographer than I was when I was initially using the LC-A. My first couple of years doing photography, I was just going through a process of trial and error, just learning how to be a photographer and developing my photographic style in general. I want my photos to stand on their own, not on the merit of things like vignetting and flashy colors. But, when I look into my purse and see that LC-A, that I used to carry with me everywhere, it’s comforting to look upon. It feels familiar in my hands. And those images it produces make me want to say “Ah, hello, my Russian comrade. I remember you well.”
(I SO wish I could do a Russian accent just about now…)
Who doesn’t love to travel? I know I sure do! I, like a lot of travel lovers, do not get to do it as much as I would like to. Everyone likes to take photos when they travel. When a photographer goes on vacation, photography can become the most important thing. More important than experiences
Three years ago, I up and took a voyage to England. Alone. You can read a little about it here. Besides the fact that I was already in love with the Motherland before I set foot on British soil, I knew the main purpose of my trip was photography, photography, photography. I owned a dSLR, but I was so high and mighty that I didn’t take it. I documented my entire trip on film. There were times when camera malfunctions made me second-guess this decision, but I don’t regret leaving the digital camera back in Mississippi while I went to England. In the end, I was glad I’d gone to England on my own because when you are a photographer on vacay, it can be difficult to juggle your desire to photograph with being fair to your traveling companions. I could stop and go as much as I want, come and go as I pleased, all to suit my photographic needs.
Both the issue of film vs. digital and how to get in satisfying photography while traveling with others cropped up for me recently. I traveled with about 7 of my friends to St. Louis, Missouri for a quick visit. I, being me, left my nice digital SLR at home and opted instead to take my Nikon FE and Holga 120N. I didn’t stock up on film before I left for Missouri because I figured I could just do that when I got up there. When some of my friends realized I didn’t have my digital camera, they were both perplexed and slightly disappointed because they new the limitations of film might hamper the volume of photos I could take on the trip. I was somewhat offended that my artistic vision for documenting our time in St. Louis was being questioned. Then some things happened along the way that caused me to learn my lesson.
I am very stubborn about using film rather than digital in most areas of my photography. However, I’m going to have to admit now there are some drawbacks to basing yourself in film photography. For example, when my friends and I arrived in St. Louis, it was getting late in the day and the sunlight was fading fast. We went to the zoo, and there were definitely certain shots I couldn’t get because I had a slow film speed, 100 ASA, loaded in my camera. Sure, I am quite pleased with some of the photos I DID get, but the scope of my photography that first night in the STL was not what it should’ve been.
Nikon FE and Holga 120N at the St. Louis Zoo.
Tragedy struck my plan of being too cool for school and do only film photography in St. Louis: I actually LEFT my wallet at the restaurant where we’d stopped for lunch on our way to St. Louis. Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I discovered this when I went to stock up on film and had no way of paying for it. D’oh! My lack of preparedness bit me in the rear. Yes, Amanda Raney did go out of town with only one roll of 35mm film in her possession. Oh how the mighty have fallen…
I ran out of film pretty early in the day Sunday morning. Before we’d even left our super cool hotel, in fact! And we still had hours of St. Louis awesomeness to enjoy before going home. What’s a girl to do??
Nikon FE and Holga 120N at and around the hotel Sunday morning
All was not lost, thanks to the darling Annie who decided I should use her point-and-shoot digital camera while we spent our last few hours in St. Louis before going back to Memphis. I’m sure she knew not being able to take photos like I wanted was just eating me up inside. If you think I’m uppity about not using my dSLR for everything, you should see how uppity I normally am about my ever having to use a point-and-shoot digital! Once again, I had to learn my lesson: some camera is better than no camera at all. And guess what: that little camera of Annie’s wasn’t half bad! It performed well, I’d say. We went to the St. Louis Art Museum, the galleria, and a cool pizza joint for lunch. I ended up being quite pleased with a lot of the photos. Just gotta know how to get the best out of these little cameras.
Further adventures in STL, taken with Annie’s Sony Cybershot
For the events that unfolded with my photography in St. Louis, I am taking the “all’s well that ends well” viewpoint. I didn’t come back with a portfolio stacked with shots of that city, but I came back with a lot of fun (and some quite nice) shots that fulfilled my need to do photography while traveling.
So what is my conclusion in all of this? When you, as a photographer, are going somewhere special, you have to assess the purpose of your trip. Is this a trip that is going to be based mostly around photography? If so, how is this going to work out if I’m traveling with others who are not mainly interested in doing fine photography while we’re away? Even if I had had all the film in the world while I was in St. Louis, I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I wanted to photographically because I was with people whose purpose was to hang out with friends in a different city, not pack in as much photography as possible.
I had to learn that maybe it’s okay that I go out of town with my friends and have a main purpose of just being with my buddies. When I access the purpose of future out of town trips, I will decide if it’s to hang out with my friends, or if I’m planning on coming back with a body of work from that city. After my experience in St. Louis, if the answer is “my main purpose is to just have fun with my friends,” I’m honestly just going to throw my digital camera and maybe a small 35mm camera in my bag to take care of the type of photography I’ll do while I’m away.
It was my first time to travel to St. Louis and I just LOVED the city. I was just DYING because there were so many awesome things I saw and I wanted to capture in photos. It just wasn’t practical this time around. I resigned myself that I would be “forced” to go back to STL another time specifically for a photo excursion. Oh, the things I’ll do for my work!