July 18, 2009

What is LOMO?

Lomography is a different type of photography which is more focused on emphasizing the casual and "snapshot' style of photography.

This style of photography is over-saturated colors and has an off-kilter type of exposure handling. It also deals with a lot of "happy accidents" as well as blurring. This type of photography is not really as technical as most people are used to because it involves a lot of spontaneous stuff without really going into the nitty-gritty details of composition and proper lighting.

The way that the pictures are post-processed are through a lomographic technique which is especially developed for the type of effects that lomography is gunning for. Those who are into lomography are encouraged to pursue the art with a very lighthearted approach.

Lomography is more into documenting events in one's life rather than composing a picture that is solely criticized for its aesthetic value. The ability of people to shoot in low light greatly encourages candid photography as well as random types of scenes.

The original Lomo LC-A cam was marketed as an entire line of analog cameras and it has had a considerable following up to this date. Today, a typical lomographic camera is designed to have a single photographic effect. An example of this is a lomography camera which has a fisheye lens.

Other lomography cameras have a wideangle lens which are also able to shoot fisheye distorted photographs. There are also cameras which allow multiple exposures in one single frame of film which accounts for the different lenses that a lomo-cam has. These types of cameras come in rainbow colored flashes or maybe even allow light leaks in some places of the frame.

One of the trademarks of lomography is its motto of "not thinking and just shooting". It greatly advocates spontaneity as well as ubiquity and as mentioned earlier, does not care too much about technique since it essentially throws the factor of composition out the window. It does this because for you to be a genuine lomographer, you should be able to take shots from the hip.

This does require a bit of skill in order for you to at least get something of interest when the pictures are developed but in this case, any shot is as good as the next. In lomography, you should always remember to shoot first and think later.

source:www.guideto.com

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