Lomography Love: A Documentary
Journal
Lomography Love Contest
Don't forget about our current Lomography photo contest! A chance to see your photos on display in the shop at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival this year and win a prize! You have a little over a month left to get those rolls developed and send us your best shots.
Contest Details:
As creators and artists, photographers and enthusiasts, we’re inviting you to submit your LOMO photographs to our in-store exhibit entitled Lomography Love. This exhibit is intended to inspire beginners and bring together the seasoned experts. It will be the People’s Choice who walks away with a Paper Umbrella Prize. But the real treasure is in viewing the love.
- Up to 3 submissions per person
- No larger than 8x10
- Accepted until Friday, May 17, 5:30 p.m.
- Returned upon request
- Show opening: Thursday, May 23, 7:00 p.m.
- People’s choice announced Sunday, May 26, 2013
- Film prints only, please! Framed, unframed, mounted, matted, cropped, whatever your heart desires.
We're so excited to see what you bring in! Oh, and if you want to mail in your submission, our address is 2724 13th Ave. Regina, SK, S4T 1N3.
Good luck!
Lomography Love - Part III
I thought the La Sardina was the only Lomography camera I could ever love. It was beautiful, durable, it fit in my purse for easy adventuring, it created stunning, sharp images with just the right amount of film grain and quirky lens flares. I was hooked and sold and loyal to the death.
That is, I guess, until I received the Lomography Fisheye No. 2 for Christmas.
Another 35mm camera, yes, but this time with a 170-degree wide-angle view, removable fisheye viewfinder, multiple and long exposure capabilities, and sweet fisheye barrel distortion. The prints this thing produces are fantastic.
I used a whole roll of film in one afternoon, because everything, everything, looks cooler in fisheye.
The Fisheyes will cost you anywhere from $40-$80 and come in MINI SIZES too (the minis are about the size of a credit card, take 110 film, and are absolutely undeniably the most adorable film cameras you've ever laid eyes on). Each camera comes with two booklets--one with inspirational pictures and unique shooting techniques, and one with instructions for how to use your camera best.
Don't forget to check out the Lomography contest happening right now at Paper Umbrella! Pop in to say hi, pick up your own camera, and enter your prints to win a prize from the shop! (Details on our Facebook page.)
Suzy Krause lives in the Cathedral Village and is an avid regular at Paper Umbrella. She also writes at www.suzykrauseandtheskyscrapers.blogspot.com and would love to see you there!
Lomography Love - Part II
The very first Lomography camera I ever laid eyes on was the La Sardina DIY. It came in the mail on a Friday, packaged beautifully and so full of intrigue. I carefully removed it and its many accessories from the cardboard and fell right in love with it in 2.0 seconds.
The little plastic camera was white with removable plates that you could draw on or glue stuff to or even cover in glitter, if you wanted to. It came with an external flash and interchangeable coloured filters. There was a multiple exposure switch on the top, and a place to adjust the focus by the lens, and a knob to wind to advance the film. And that was it. Uncomplicated, but still full of possibilities.
I loaded it with 35mm film and away we went.
I took it on vacation to the mountains. I took it to my inlaws' for Christmas. I took it down the street for a walk. And every time I flipped through my newly developed film, I saw things that were not new to me at all as though they were. And that is the coolest thing.
Things to try with your La Sardina:
1. Take a picture, change the filter on your flash, take another shot over the same frame (using the MX switch on the top of your camera). Repeat x3. Or 2. Or 4.
2. Take a picture, turn the camera upside down, take another shot over the same frame.
3. Take multiple exposures of the same person in the same place, moving only the camera. Take multiple exposures of that person moving around, keeping the camera in the same place. Take multiple exposures of your cat. Make it look like your cat is triplets.
4. Take a picture with a coloured filter in the sunlight (only bits of the picture will be tinted) or indoors (for total saturation). Take a picture of your cat with a filter on the flash. Make it look like your cat is blue. Take a picture directly into the sun for cool solar flares.
The La Sardinas run from around $60 - $120. They take 35mm and a battery for the flash. (You can still get 35mm film developed rather cheaply at Don's Photo or Walmart.) Each camera comes with two booklets--one with inspirational pictures and unique shooting techniques, and one with instructions for how to use your camera best.
Lomography is constantly coming out with cute new designs for the La Sardina, and Paper Umbrella is ordering new ones in all the time! Make sure to stop in and check them out.
Suzy Krause lives in the Cathedral Village and is an avid regular at Paper Umbrella. She also writes at www.suzykrauseandtheskyscrapers.blogspot.com and would love to see you there!
Lomography Love - Part I
Memories are fragile and fickle; the way you see something, the way your brain interprets it at that moment, the details that are played back to you in your mind years later, the little things that are lost or changed as the memory flickers and fades and sometimes disappears altogether.
Photography, then, is kind of a miracle--an external mind's eye. A way to physically hold a piece of your past, a laugh, a friend, a moment, and to enjoy it again. A way to keep your kids from growing up, or to stop yourself from aging, or to remember how your face looks with a smile on it if you've forgotten.
The anti-miraculous thing about it is how expensive and intimidating and overwhelming it's becoming. There are SLRs and tri-pods and bulky camera bags and external flashes and expensive lenses; there are rules about lighting and composition, YouTube tutorials and lengthly articles to help you figure out all the little knobs and buttons and settings on your camera; there are critical eyes and editing software and debate about whether 'real' photographers use editing software.
I have no desire to be a 'real' photographer. There are so many of you, and you do it so well, with your cameras that cost as much as houses and weigh as much as horses. But I'm afraid of brides, and I don't like looking through the lens and trying to figure out how to make something that will impress someone else. I like picture taking in the same way that I like writing or doodling or playing music. I like the process of trying to get what I'm seeing in my head out in some physical form, without worrying too much what the "right" way of doing it is. And, most of all, I like that basic miraculous part of photography. I like seeing my precious memories laid out in front of me on the kitchen table in neat rectangles and remembering places and people and times that I don't want to forget.
That's why I love these little plastic Lomography cameras which are now available at Paper Umbrella. They have enough settings and buttons and switches and flashes and filters to keep things interesting, without ever once making me feel like I'm doing something "wrong". I can take a million exposures on a single frame and I can leave the shutter open as long as I feel like and I can shoot in a dark room or outside in the middle of the day. Even things that a 'real' photographer might consider mistakes--light leaks, multiple exposures, etc.--turn out beautiful and add to the picture, instead of wrecking it.
I've started my own little collection of these quirky cameras, and I'll be posting here from time to time to tell you about them and show you some of the pictures they take, as well as trying out some different films and add-ons.
See you soon!
Suzy Krause lives in the Cathedral Village and is an avid regular at Paper Umbrella. She also writes at www.suzykrauseandtheskyscrapers.blogspot.com and would love to see you there!