Lomography

The Lomography Lomography or referred to a movement, a community and a marketing concept of Lomography AG. Lomography belongs to the snapshot Photography category. The term is derived from the miniature camera " LOMO Compact Automat " (LC -A) of the St. Petersburg company Lomo.

Photos that are made with this or similar cheap camera makes, have a deficient compared to regular cameras image quality with errors and interference effects that should be avoided outside the Lomography in general. The Lomography however these often unpredictable image properties are desired.

Image quality

Apparently poor picture quality has long been targeted. Here one hand blurs are consciously employed as a design tool, it is unimportant image backgrounds hidden with controlled depth of field or underexposed images targeted on or off. In lomography, however, only the technical shortcomings of the cameras to be accepted, a targeted influence on the design such as in the classic photography does not allow the technology.

An objective deterioration of image quality and an emphasis on the snapshot character is a common stylistic device in fashion photography. Software tools for digital image editing usually offer also functions to mimic this photo errors, so that a lomografischer style can also be retrofitted to add a regular photo.

The basic idea

Everyone in the Soviet Union should have its own camera in order to document and to capture his life and the beauty of the home. The first and most famous Lomokamera LC -A ( Lomo Compact Automat ), which was produced from 1983, the Japanese compact camera Cosina CX-1 was based.

In the countries of the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Lomokameras, some of the few rangefinder cameras with automatic exposure control, because of unreliability and poor image quality, however, were not very popular. As an art form in terms of the retro movement that Lomography is created only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in Western countries.

Development

The Lomography as an "art form " had its origins in Vienna, where students organized various exhibitions in the early 1990s with their colorful pictures on large partitions ( so-called " Lomowänden "). Founded as the " photo initiative Lomographic Society " in June 1992 by Matthias Fiegl, Christoph and Wolfgang Hofinger Stranziger in Vienna. The new view of the world, made possible by " Hüftschüsse " and unplanned, experimental snapshots, soon attracted more amateur photographers developed under his spell, which helped that the technically obsolete LOMO LC -A was still produced until 2005, and even new LOMO cameras were ( with quadruple to even ninefold lenses and others, such as for underwater photos, for color change, with fish-eye lens, etc.). Worldwide, there are now Lomographic companies and embassies. Since 2006, a further development of the LOMO LC -A, the LOMO LC-A is produced in China. The cameras also include the Lomo Smena series (Russian: СМЕНА ), where all the settings and the transport to be done manually. The Smena was taken seriously viewfinder camera with a lens, which allowed ordinary photography in contrast to the Lomo.

Technology

An essential characteristic of the Lomography is that they play with it, technically not to be mature. But meanwhile camera models are available but whose appearance makes use of various optical effects. Happy fisheye cameras are used. Models with multiple lenses use four to nine lenses with different focal lengths, each illuminate a time offset a portion of the image (usually on a KB film).

The images that are called Lomografien, you can take pictures with any cheap rangefinder principle; However, "real" Lomography swear by the poor 32- mm wide- angle lens that delivers exaggerated color-rich, high-contrast images. In Lomo photos often become extremely colorful and blurred images. The " Lomographic Society Vienna " is recommended for the development of the format on paper 7 x 10 cm, since the uncertainties are not so much on the small size. Since this is but offered little more today, suitable for cost reasons even 9 × 13 cm.

Controversy analog / digital

Through the triumph of faster digital photography and also due to the particular time required to develop a film, increasingly gives the trend of variation of Lomography: The "golden shot off the cuff " using cheaper digital cameras, which is, however, consistently rejected by traditional Lomography. Many websites show so-called digital photo blogs that are an evolution of the Lomography in the approach.