Ryan Estrellado

Photo by *nathan

I’ve seen it mentioned on Flickr, alongside out-of-focus photos of laughing hipsters or lonely armchairs in someone’s disorganized living room.  The photos have a spontaneous look characterized by everyday subject matter, lots of saturated blues and greens, and the signature vignetting darkening the corners.  Interested, I did some online research and found lots of fun reading about the history, culture, debate, geeky equipment specs, and tech tutorials surrounding Lomography.

Started in the early 1990s, the Lomography philosophy is grounded in a set of simple rules, found on the official website:

1. Take your camera everywhere you go
2. Use it anytime — day or night
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it
4. Try the shot from the hip
5. Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6. Don’t think (William Firebrace)
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

If you’re a fiddler of settings (as I am) and your shooting tends to be slowed down and premeditated (as mine does), this approach might inspire a different perspective or add variety to your photography experience.

Here are more interesting Lomography reads:

The Lomography Official Website (including Lomo cameras):

http://www.lomography.com/

The Lomography Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomography

A critique of the Lomography movement:

http://cameras.alfredklomp.com/lomography/

Flickr photos tagged with “Lomography”:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=lomography&m=tags

A tutorial for simulating the Lomo look using Photoshop:

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/lomography.html