IT IS LOMO

Are you in the mood to ponder about the questions on why you are into analogue photography? Sean Miles Lotman, a writer and budding haiku poet, tackles these hot topics of discussion and elaborates on the intrinsic aura that lies in the analogue world.
There is a tendency among photographers to define themselves through their camera as much as by the photographic end result. Doing so they willfully reveal a philosophical approach to seeing the world with their chosen instrument.

With digitalization streamlining the photographic experience it seems no coincidence that Lomography should be in its ascendancy. In her classic text On Photography, Susan Sontag writes that faster, better technology will cause some individuals to want to produce photos with a special, handmade quality, “an aura,” so to speak. Writing about this subject in the late 1970s, it seems prescient today when you look at the democratization of photography we’ve witnessed in the last decade, particularly user-friendly digital SLRs saturating the image market. Nikon, and especially, Canon, have produced cameras so popular it feels like everything this past decade has been photographed to a condition of numbness. How can photographs of iconic images such as the Pyramids, Angkor Wat, or the Grand Canyon surprise us anymore? The Lomo and its tendency towards the serendipitous accident is the counterpoint to the digital argument of neatness, focus, and “the sure thing.”
the popularity of the iPhone application, Hipstamatic, which transforms boring camera phone images into something with an “analogue feel.” As the first syllable of its name suggests, this analogue shortcut is very trendy among a young, cool population surfeited with digital photography.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but there is also a risk of industrial and artistic plagiarism. Beyond these considerations, the Hipstamtaic completely misses the point. Shooting analogue is not just an aesthetic; it is just as much a philosophy and a method. Analogue is an awareness that we live in an unpredictable, uncontrollable, vibrant world rife with hidden beauties and eloquence in small, everyday objects. Shooting analogue requires the photographer to be more intuitive than his digital counterpart—to feel his environment better, because factoring in the costs of film, development, and prints, you do not have trigger-finger options.
But in its distortion of reality, the Lomo photograph is more akin to the paintings of Impressionists than the Surrealists, for it is not trying to subvert reality as much as build a daydream out of it. Impressionism and Lomography share a primacy of visual effects over detail and vividness over geometry.

Be a lomographer without lomo cameras 2

Yoko introduced some ideas about using other equipments to create lomography. In fact, to create pictures with lomo style does not fully rely on hardwares, using softwares could also achieve it. Nowadays, lomo fans are following one of the guide principles of lomography, they try different ways to make lomography as cheap as possible. Because the films become increasingly expensive, lomography is no longer cheap and affordable.
People start to find the way using digital techniques to transform Lomo, but digital cameras could never achieve the texture and accidental effects that film cameras will provide. However, the development of digital design softwares facilitates the transformation of lomo.

Toycamera Analog Colors is one of the most popular software that is used to adjust normal photographs to Lomo photographs. It follows different styles to adjust the colors and texture of images, users only need to click a single button to achieve a certain style.
Unfortunately I failed to download a proof edition of this software, but I found several sample images from it's official site.

Another interesting software is called Polaroid. As it's name refers to, this software is specialized at turning normal photos into Polaroid style photos. The colors of the photos changed to another style that gives people the feeling of old pictures. What funny is, when processing the photos, the software make users to shake the mouse just like people shaking the polaroid films.
Here are two samples of turning Lucy's photo into Polaroid style.


These transfered photos are less focused and clear than the original ones, but somehow brought the sense of dream and softness. Colors are adjusted and tends to have a main tone of pink purple. Compare to the digital photos, the feeling of lines and edges are more obvious, this creates a softer texture.
I would like to hear Lucy's own opinion of these changes as well, hope that she will like them.

Let’s traveling with Lomo camera (Bowonniwet Vihara Temple - Bangkok, Thailand)

Since last week I emailed Dalai Lama’s official website but nobody give me more details about Dalai Lama’s photography hobby, so I will keep researching about lomography and Buddhism.

As we all know, Even though nowadays Buddhism is quite popular in China, Thailand is its origin. Let’s traveling to Bowonniwet Vihara Temple, to experience the temple in Thailand, which is totally different from Chinese temple style.

Bowonniwet Vihara Temple is a first class Royal Buddhist monastery of the Dhammayut tradition, located on the northeast side of Bangkok's Ratanakosin island.The monastery’s name comes from the Pali language: Pavara+niwesa and translates as the Excellent Abode Monastery.There have been six abbots from the beginning to the present, three of whom have been Supreme Patriarchs.In the temple precincts, Buddhist monasteries are usually divided into two sections: Buddhavasa – buildings and structures devoted to the Buddha such as the Uposatha hall, the Cetiya or Stupa, etc., and Sanghavasa – or dwellings for monks (bhikkhus) and novices (samaneras).The chapel is the most important building in the temple, this is where ordinations and other official acts of the Order take place as well as a housing of one of Thailand’s most famous Buddha images – Pra Buddha Jinasiha – a Buddha image from the Sukhothai period.

Also to be found inside this hall are the distinctive and unique murals painted by well known Thai painter, In Kong, during King Mongkut’s time. Unfortunately, time and moisture have taken their toll and some of the murals have had to undergo a process which includes lifting off whole sections of painted plaster, affixing these to plastic plates and then reattaching them to their former positions

Photography, to open the channel of imagination

Chloe and I interviewed Dr. Lucille Clements today about her experience in photography.
Lucy is known by us as a tutor in communication department at Insearch, but her life is way richer than sitting in the classroom and lecture: she is also a musician who plays piano and keyboard in the very well known Australian Rock 'n Roll band "Rose Tatoo" , a photographer who used to have a personal exhibition and a film maker whose film got invited to screen at 2007 Melbourne international film festival.
For Lucy, photography and music are her ways of expression and the way that she keeps her imagination and creativity. She likes to play piano when she got spare time, this make she feel calm and think.
Different from her music style, she chose to capture tree barks as her favourite objects. The pictures are diverse, full of natural but unusual colours and through the lens, viewers could feel the natural calm and spirit that Lucy wants to introduce. She also named all of her photos, this make the images vivid and the stories behind it could be told and understand with only a few words.
Actually, the idea of taking photos of tree barks is not new to Lucy, she came up with this idea long time before and right after she finished producing a documentary about Rock 'n Roll music, she started the journey of exploring the beauty of Australian native nature and took trees as her models. These two topics formed a contract, but also created the possibility for Lucy to expand her creativity. In terms of combining her photography works and music, she tends to choose rather lighter and natural music style for her photography.

Mimi, a tree bark that is similar to the aboriginal art form that are about the spirit of Mimi.

Ned Kelly, a bark looks like somebody wearing a mask.

Thanks to Lucy's time and these wonderful pictures.

Lomography catch the moment that you forgot

Just like we mentioned again and again, the principle: do not think, just shooting is also the difference between photography and lomography. In terms of photography, the photographer would care about the light, the exposal, the ISO, the angle etc. As far as I am concern, photography is more like create your life, everything will be like what you expect it looks like. When people are shooting, the procedure are full filled with passion, imagination and creativity. The image will also turn out to be maintain a deep meaning, expressing your emotion when the shooting occur or when you saw the scene. Good photographer can bring the audience into the world of the photo, for example, when I saw the photos about the nature or landscape I feels free, or magical and sometimes shock by the power of the nature.

Some of the art photography are more deliberately, purely to express a sense of aesthetic from the photographer's point of view.

When Monica and I was interview Lucy, I still remember she says when she was taking the photo of the bark of the tree she always care about the structure, the exposal, the graphic. It means she is creating the art and the aesthetic that in her discovering.

On the contrary, Lomography is more tend to be snapshot, it happens in every moment, every corner. DO NOT THINK, JUST SHOOTING. With the spirit of lomography, the lomographers shift their thoughtfulness to the future but not the time when they were shooting. Since moment is the time that people most easy to forget, probably after few years when they review their lomograph, all of the emotion of that moment will be recalled, emerging in their mind.

Light-painting, paint the sky in the night

I was introduced Light-painting one or two years ago, when people massively start to upload interesting pictures of them writing in the air.

Gradually, I became curious of how these images are produced. They look strange but funny, especially people shoot objects with light effects: girls with wings, ginger men working through the zebra crossing etc.
Then, our tutor of COMM 116 Linda Hodson took us to an exhibition held in Custom House. I saw a video showing the process of light painting there.

The photographer wore black colour costumes with bulbs on it, then he jumped or swum, the camera captured all the light's movements, they are very catching and look mysterious. That was the first time when I know how people create these funny pictures and I think to take photo becomes an activity that many people could participate and enjoy. They idea of light-painting comes to me like the idea of painting the air and sky.

I remember that a photography teacher back in China told me that to take photos is to paint with the light and shadows. This idea is very similar to the idea of light-painting. But the difference is, light-painting is a creation, is to change the objective world without ruin it. So in my opinion, light-painting is more about to interact with the world, but not to actually change it.

I took these light-painting photos at my terrace in the night, in Wolli Creek. This is the first time that I try to do so. I used my Cannon 400D and set it up on a tripod. The exposure lasted 30 seconds and I used a torchlight to paint.


The pictures are soft and the brightness are actually unexpected. Next time I might adjust the duration of exposure and try to take the camera to a darker place.

For me, light-painting is a way of expression, I like those pictures that people write words with different colours of lights. I fund it similar to the art form of graffiti, but it is more harmless. Although it is deliberate, the spirit of light-painting is very similar to LOMO. I think to take LOMO pictures is to enrich the life with colours and little beautiful surprises, light-painting is a style that allow people to explore their joy of seeing the world on a different angle.

"photography is murder"-----Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki is a well-known and controversial photographer who takes a fundamental role in Japanese Art extent. Someone thinks he is just a freak and voyeurism because most of his photography subjects are focus on something taboo or conventionally forbidden like naked women, their vaginas and boobs with extreme close up shoot and even sometimes bound Japanese women wear traditional kimonos or completely naked. Araki said the reality always exposure after being naked. However, he also gets a massive number of loyal cross-cultural fans like a very famous one, Iceland singer, Bjork.

Except his symbolic subjects, naked women, Araki also likes to shoot reptiles, died fishes, his favorite cat, transformation of clouds, especially his hometown Tokyo. He claimed that in one of his interview in 2003, Tokyo city has somehow mysterious relation with sex, the dark side of Tokyo city is similar as intricate sex which is hided in the depth of Tokyo. Araki barely uses digital cameras for filming and addicted to lomography. He published particular two photograph albums that taken by lomo cameras. He likes both black-white and colored photos and he has very unique opinion about them. Araki said black-white represents death in his picture and colored ones express vitality.

This might be related to his personal experiences about death, her wife Yoko and his maiden work ‘sentimental journey’. This work records his honeymoon and also could be seen a documentary album of her wife’s death. 'sentimental journey' is my favorite one among his approximately 200 photography albums. It might be an important reason which helps me to understand a little bit about his works. I was definitely shocked and felt extremely uncomfortable when I was first encountered his symbolic pictures, I was thinking about how could he take these sorts of ridiculous photos? And then I began to wonder what kind of person could take these quirky things and what about his real life. It was unbelievable to find out he has a beloved wife and he directly documented her death with camera. Yoko was always his favorite model and the first person gave him evaluation about his works.

There are two specific photos of ‘sentimental journey’ that impressed me a lot. One is Yoko peacefully lied on a boat alone. She looks so relax but it somehow reminded me a sense of sadness. Especially I knew she already had cancer when Araki filmed. This is a kind of feeling about a husband watches beloved wife is dying but he has nothing to do but took the photo and it will remind himself everytime in the future. Espeically Araki used film camera to shoot this one which perfectly suited for the meaning of it, the best moment will never comeback again, you just could record it but can't change it.

The second one is very touching and I almost cried when I first saw it. This photo was also taken by Araki himself. Araki holds Yoko’s hand and she is already gone at that moment. This is the ending of Yoko's life, the ending of photographic conversation between Araki and Yoko, also the ending of 'sentimental journey'

"Maybe I only had a relationship with her as a photographer, not as a partner. If I hadn’t documented her death, both the description of my state of mind and my declaration of love would have been incomplete. I found consolation in unmasking lust and loss, by staging a bitter confrontation between symbols. After Yoko’s death, I didn’t want to photograph anything but life – honestly. Yet every time I pressed the button, I ended up close to death, because to photograph is to stop time. I want to tell you something, listen closely: photography is murder."

-------------------Araki

Sources:

http://www.lensculture.com/oborn.html

http://q.sohu.com/topic/2562075

http://www.showchina.net.cn/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=6286