The opposite of Leica photography? Slightly OT

[patricks]

By viewing <a href="http://www.pogoyoyo.com">Marcel's work</a> via a

Street Photography list on Topica yesterday I got curious on what

is "Lomo". By following some links on his site I ended up at <a

href="http://www.lomography.com">Lomographic International

Society</a> (Perhaps many of you already knew about lomography but it

was new to me).</P>

 

Even if lomography promotes that you should forget everything you

ever learned about photography the artform/subculture/style (...)

have some rules: </p>

 

<b> 10 GoldenRules of LOMOgraphy:</b></p>

 

<li> take your LOMO with you wherever you go

<li> use it all the time, at any time - day and night

<li> Lomography does not interfere with your life, it's a part of it

<li> get as close as possible to the objects of your lomographic

desire </li>

<li> don't think (William Firebrace)</li>

<li> be fast</li>

<li> you don't have to know what's going to be captured on your film

beforehand </li>

<li> you don't have to know what's on the film afterwards either </li>

<li> shoot from the hip </li>

<li> don't worry about rules </li>

 

So, I am curious on the forum's reaction to this type of photography.

Many Leica photographer pride themselves for making carefull

compositions and exposures, about the decades of knowledge that went

into perfecting one's understanding of the media/artform/techniques.

Lomography promotes the very opposite. </p>

 

I, for one, actually like Marcel's #37 and #38 street photoraphy

folders from Venice. They have some pleasing saturated colors,

compositions, DoFs that I find interesting. (in all honesty, not

produced with a Lomo, but with a manual Nikon) </p>

 

Any comments?

[donald_brewster]

It is an anti-equipment fetish. It's jazz vs. the classical form. It's about life, freedom, fun, and the resulting image. It's about found visual objects. It is about participation rather than leaving art to just the priestly class. It is another way of seeing and another piece of equipment for a particular purpose. God bless 'em, every one. An escape from the anal compulsion that permeates just about everything else we have to do in life. Enjoy it, have fun, and smile. Your comment after the 10 golden rules reminds me of a story attributed to Louis Armstrong -- "you practice your scales for years until you got them down cold, and then you just blow baby!"

[preston_merchant]

These aesthetic-manifesto discussions usually don't get very far on our Leica board, as most of the participants are formalists.

[andrew1]

I bought an

<a href="http://www.cameraquest.com/xa4.htm">Olympus XA

</a> a few years ago and have used it for this type of shooting. I

am amused and irritated that some folks have claimed this sort

of shooting as attached to a particular camera when there are

many that are well suited to it.

 

I love my XA and shoot according to many of these conditions

with very pleasing results. It's fun!

[cosmo_genovese]

Check out cinematography's equivalent to "Lomography"--which also has no-rule/rule underpinnnings at--

 

http://www.tvropa.com/tvropa1.2/film/dogme95/menu/menuset.htm

[raymond_tai]

The Lomo golden rules sounds like GenX marketing. Where can I buy Lomo

sneakers? I like Marcel's photos but they need to be seen one after another

like a slide show else you don't get the emotion, IMHO.

[joshroot]

My only problems with Lomo's are the fact that they are HORRIBLY overpriced. You think Leicas are bad? Look at what they want to charge art-snob gen-x idiots for a piece of russian/east europe junk. The idea behind the "shooting rules" aren't bad. But you could do the same thing with a $14 holga or any p&s camera.

[andy_piper2]

I've always thought Leicas (well, RFs in general) were just grown-up LOMOs with interchangeable lenses:

 

� take your LOMO with you wherever you go - (the M6 is alway on my shoulder)

 

� use it all the time, at any time - day and night --- (I HAVE to do this with the Leicas - it's the only way to amortize the cost in a reasonable time!)

 

� Lomography does not interfere with your life, it's a part of it - (sounds good to me! - see above)

 

� get as close as possible to the objects of your... desire - (just a rewrite of Robert Capa's dictum "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough".)

 

� be fast - (love the Leica's short shutter lag and 'snap-together' focusing)

 

� you don't have to know what's going to be captured on your film beforehand - (Read all the posts here about framing issues, parallax, etc. As Forrest Gump's Momma said: "Shooting rangefinders is like a box of choklits - you never know exactly what you're going to get.")

 

� shoot from the hip - (Gary Winogrand, anyone?)

 

� don't worry about rules - (applies to any camera, any format ever made. (Except maybe the Leica "0" - ALWAYS cap the shutter before advancing the film.) =8^o

 

Seems to me that "the opposite of Leica photography" is like "the opposite of sex" - an undefinable koan.

 

Great fun, Patrick...!

[dpablo]

those pictures are trully beautiful and can be accomplished by

shooting with ANY camera and a lot of time spent in PHOTOSHOP...!!!!!!

 

...ain't nothing coming out that saturated by chance!

 

dpabl

[carbonado]

LOMO?

<P>

Hahahah.

<P>

Forget the overpriced Lomo. Get the cheap Holga. I just picked up a couple a local store for five bucks a piece. Brand new. And each has its own "Holga" effect.

<P>

Some folks like the Holga, most folks don't. Yet I know an awful lot of Leica users who secretly stash a Holga in their kitbag when they head out.

<P>

A couple links to my own Holga shots:

<P>

<a href="http://www.crabgrassfrontier.com/crabgrass/images/July4_2.jpg">http://www.crabgrassfrontier.com/crabgrass/images/July4_2.jpg</a>

<P>

<a href="http://www.crabgrassfrontier.com/crabgrass/images/street47.jpg">http://www.crabgrassfrontier.com/crabgrass/images/street52.jpg</a>

<P>

[carbonado]

Whoops. Okay. One more.

<P>

Happened to be walking along Michigan Avenue. My M6 was, in fact, in my hand, but for whatever reason I grabbed the Holga ...

<P><div></div>

[andrew_lee2]

I think there's a novelty and kitsch about "Lomography" that's somewhat refreshing at first, but after awhile the pictures all start to look the same. Also to address an earlier comment, from what I understand pictures taken with the Lomo <do> look that way w/o Photoshopping. I don't see it as being a good thing...I think this particular brand of high-contrast, high-saturation has a 'cheap' look and feel to it.

[michael_meyer]

first note: i have to agree with the above poster who noted that

the golden rules of lomography sound an awful lot like the rules

sprouted by leica gurus...

 

second note: dogme 95 is not the cinematic equivalent of the

lomography manifesto. i don't think so anyway. dogme 95 is all

about the focus being on the story, about letting go of our

concepts of what a film is. it wants to run away from the

hollywood over engineered crap that is being produced day in

and day out. lomography is not really rebelling against an

overarching powerhouse that has lost much of its soul (and yes,

i think hollywood is just that). lomography is much more about

letting go of one's inhibitions and, to some extent, control.

doesn't the lomography website mention something about

encouraging machine store processing to add just that much

more element of chance?

 

i would give some quotes and put together a really coherent

argument stemming from what i just wrote, but i haven't read the

dogme 95 manifesto in a while and i am at work with things to

do. though not such important things that i can't take a moment

to post a short post.

[preston_merchant]

Alfie is a fan of Dogme 95 and outlined his Leica equivalents of the manifesto. Check the archives.

[leslie_cheung]

i think the opposite of leica photography is 4x5 photography.

...and the comment about leica users being mostly formalist is quite

absurd. all of the advantages of leica amounts to quick momentary

grab shots, the fleeting moments. think early kertesz, early frank,

winogrand. am i wrong here?

 

why would someone buy a lomo?? the same reason some subscribe to the

leica myth maybe?

---billy

[phill kneen]

Well, right or wrong, everyone will disagree with you anyway just for the sake of it. Nobody will just say "yes, photoshop or not, these are good photographs.....".

 

Everyone wants to have the last word, don't they?

[patricks]

I might be with Andrew on this one, that the images are refreshing at first, but the question is what long term value they hold.

 

regardless, I try to take input from all directions/genres, so I think this is worth looking into/disect/try to understand/or just look at and interpret one's emotions. and have fun...

[ray .]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's good to loosen up, but what's new about that? Soft focus can be fun but tends toward being a gimmick after awhile. After the novelty wears off it's time to move on.

[ray_moth]

My understanding of the "Lomography" phenomenon is that it is a cult that was started by a couple of guys planning to make big bucks by buying cheap-&-nasty Russian cameras and reselling them, with a hefty mark-up, to gullible people. They seem to have succeeded!

[cd thacker]

When I saw the title of this thread ("The oppoasite of Leica photography"), it never occurred to me that I'd be reading about Lomo, a close family cousin. I agree that 4x5 is probably the opposite. But a (very) strong case could be made for the heavy, auto-everything SLR with zoom lens, a la EOS-1v, F5. To me that represents the antithesis of what I think of as "Leica photography" - though in fairness I'd admit that Leica photography is to me really about a style of working, and a philosophy of working, more than it is about equipment; so that you could use, say, an F5 in a Leica-style way. But in any event, I don't see how LOMO could in any way be considered "opposite" - unless the sole criterion used for judgement is price.

[robert goldstein]

From what little I have been able to comprehend about Lomography, it seems to entail the belief that randomness will occasionally produce something worthwhile. It's like the old theory that an infinite number of monkeys sitting in front on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of William Shakespeare. This may be true, but it still does not create a compelling case for a photographer to spend his limited time and resources deliberately grabbing random or nearly random shots, almost all of which will be crap?

 

Which brings us to a second and perhaps more meaningful principle underlying Lomography, which is the elevation of crap into art. This is what lies at the heart of "breaking all the rules." Breaking rules is at times highly commendable, but by itself is not enough to create an emotionally stirring work of art. The final product still has to evoke in the viewer a sense of beauty, awe, wonder or fascination. The old rules evolved as they did, because they codify the elements that tend to produce those effects in most human beings. Perhaps the real value of the "no rules" approach, then, is to jolt us out of our standard ways of seeing and into a new aesthetic.

 

Finally, after all is said and done, breaking rules becomes a rule in itself and can be just as confining as what it seeks to destroy.

[gl5]

my personal rule is that i only shoot with cameras that start with

the letter "L" and the letter "H". thus, i own a Leica and a Lomo

as well as a Holga and a Hasselblad.

 

needless to say, they all make for an interesting combination...

[jsbc]

Lomography is in one sense opposite of the simple version of Leica photography (shooting wideopen so you can get shallow depth of field, and fast enough shutter speed so the picture stays sharp). In fact with the Lomo, one would deliberately use a lower aperture to drag the shutter to 1/2 s or slower to get the blurry pictures.

 

That said, I think you can duplicate the Lomo with any AE camera, since setting the exposure takes time. (face it, unless you are really good, like Alfred Eisenstaedt who supposedly would walk down an shadow filled streets, with his hand unconsciously changing the aperture to adjust for exposures). An expensive reason to get a M7 or Hexar RF, but any Canonet will serve.

 

The only think I do not get is how they obtain such saturated pictures if they are not photoshopped. I can slightly under-expose Velvia (which is OK since the purpose is to drag the shutter anyway) but is there any convenient method to get similarly saturated prints? I just cannot believe the Lomo lens produces even more saturated photos than Leica or Zeiss can. Or are Lomo photographers using a special Russian film?

 

Johnson