Say Lomo: Your film camera just got cooler

Across the city, photographers are cruising the streets, shooting from the hip and redefining the universe one analogue image at a time, using a lomography camera. It's a flawed gadget that gives you unique images with unexpected light effects and surprising colour modifications, courtesy intentional defects. And the excitement of waiting for the lomo roll to be processed, only to be greeted with pictures of startling beauty, is creating a sorority of enthusiasts falling in

Across the city, photographers are cruising the streets, shooting from the hip and redefining the universe one analogue image at a time, using au00a0 lomography camera. It's a flawed gadget that gives you unique images with unexpected light effects and surprising colour modifications, courtesy intentional defects. And the excitement of waiting for the lomo roll to be processed, only to be greeted with pictures of startling beauty, is creating a sorority of enthusiasts falling in love with film rolls all over again, finds Karen Menezes

Digital cameras and memory cards with ever-increasing capacity have dispensed with the need for economy in shooting. After all, who needs to worry about every frame being perfect when the press of a button is all it takes to junk a bad image? A far cry from the days when analogue film cameras with expensive rolls meant every photo was precious; every picture needed to have a purpose. Today, the romance of clicking with and developing a film roll has been lost to the relentless clicking of a digital camera.

Amogh Pant (left) and Partha Rao take to the streets of Mumbai with
their lomography cameras every once in a while. Rao, who emailed
Lomography Asia after falling for the concept when he heard about it
from friends, is now spearheading the India chapter of the movement,
while Pant conducts LomoWalks for afficionados in the city.
Pic/Sameer Markande

But that can backfire too. Thirty year-old Partha Rao puts it best. "I reached breaking point after I had clicked 2,000 digital images in a span of four days. There were 25 images of a monkey scratching its head on my hard disk and I couldn't imagine why."

Like him, a group of youngsters who want to bring back the excitement, surprise and romance of shooting with film, not knowing until the very end if what the camera has captured is the same as what they saw through the viewfinder, are turning to lomography -- a new photographic phenomenon that creates accidental, unexpected beauty in photographs shot on a cheap analogue camera.

And before you think analogue went out of the window with the dinosaur, we'll have you know that every month, 1,64,000 images scanned from film are uploaded to https://www.lomography.com/.

LomoAmigos take to the streets
LomoAmigo (n): One who understands the philosophy of analogue and its creative implications. Handpicked by the Lomography brotherhood, a LomoAmigo scours the streets, emptying film canisters as he relates his story to the world.u00a0

Thirty year-old Amogh Pant from Thane, India's first LomoAmigo, entered the lomography equation this March. Between filmmaking, writing and digital photography, Pant is glued to his sexy Lomography LC-A+. "Diminutive and feather-light, the LC-A+ doesn't draw attention to itself on busy roads", he says. "I like to scan the scene, shoot and scoot without leaving a trace. Obviously, I'm not going to shoot a pro-assignment with the LC-A+, but for personal projects, it evokes a sense of freedom, fun, and even recklessness."

But what is so special about a lomography camera? It is essentially a cheap analogue camera (typically priced at Rs 3,000 and onwards) that has intentional flaws -- components that oversaturate colours, inhibit accurate focus and create vignettes. There's rampant, incidental beauty -- you never know what's going to happen to your image, especially with the lower-end models. Depending on the camera at hand, you can shoot fisheye, extreme panoramas (up to 360 ), double or multiple exposures and dreamy, low-fidelity images.

The result? High-octane, non-conformist images that remix reality. Lomographs (images produced from Lomography cameras) are akin to an LSD trip of glowing colours and distortions of time and space.

These toy cameras are an artist's tool. They are also tonnes of fun, as any lomographer will tell you. And technophobes needn't worry -- they are simple and easy to operate. Amateurs can learn to interpret light and work with constraints, while professionals can push an image beyond its regular boundaries.

Lomography: the India chapter
It all started when in 2009, Rao was re-introduced to analogue shooting by a bunch of lomographers in the US. Sold on the concept, the Borivli resident wrote to Lomography Asia to order a camera for himself. "A couple of days later, I received an email from the founders of Lomography. They were eager to start a chapter in India, but needed someone with passion and knowledge of analogue photography to run the company," he recollects.
That's all it took. "I flew to Austria for the weekend and quit a lucrative job at DHL to create a subsidiary of the international company."

The initial months were spent setting up the Indian arm of this funk phenomenon. Partner Akshay Bhoan shoots artist portfolios while managing the online Lomography community.

"Lomography is probably the most systematic society in the world currently working on preserving film as a medium. It has become a platform for analogue lovers. The community has over a million members worldwide, with a support system for lomographers that includes articles, reviews, blogs, contests, photo streams, information archives, an online store and much more," Bhoan says.

Thirty nine year-old photographer Manoj Jadhav agrees. Jadhav, who has made it to the exalted L rzer's Archive listu00a0 that showcases exceptional advertising campaigns from around the globe, two years in a row, (2009-2010, 2010-2011 for L rzer's Archive 200 Best Ad Photographers worldwide), recently composed a series for an international ad campaign for L'Or ufffdal using the Diana Mini lomography camera.

"I wanted to emulate the surreal feel of the '50s paparazzi image, with all its grain and blur," he says.

Become a LomoAmigo
The nascent Indian chapter is tying up with Indian retailers. "In a few weeks, you'll be able to purchase a Lomography camera from select outlets across the country," says Rao. Until then, the best option is to order the cameras online through Lomography Asia, which ships from Hong Kong.

That's not all. On April 23, Rao and Bhoan conducted India's first Lomography Photowalk. Eleven participants were loaned funky cameras and gifted a roll of film. They surfed the southside of the city near Chhatrapti Shivaji Terminus, braving traffic and a mean sun. After having a ball, they wound up at Churchgate's Stadium restaurant for a late breakfast. Thirty year-old Tom Joseph, who runs a pharma services company in Pune, used a Lomography Fisheye 2 during the walk and has come away with an experience he will cherish for life. "The anticipation of getting the roll developed was the most exciting bit. It's a feeling that has vanished in the digital era," he says, hitting the nail right on its head. After all, that's exactly what Pant, Rao and Co have set out to bring back.

Lomo ahead
In a world of instant gratification, where the camera has been reduced to a "capturing box", as Versova resident Jadhav puts it, the scope for leisurely framing a stunning composition has diminished.

No wonder then that there is an entire post '90s generation that has possibly never handled a film camera or sent a roll for development. Staff at Mazda Film Lab in Fort, one of the most well-known in the business, say they have watched the store's film processing clientele dwindle to about 30 per cent of its original strength over the last few years.

Mitter Bedi Pro Studio and Photo Lab in Colaba still develops black and white film; a rarity in the city. But numbers are dwindling. Gayatri Bedi, legendary photographer and Mitter Bedi's daughter, says, "There are months when we receive around 60 rolls of film, and others when we get barely seven for processing."

So will Lomography be the Noah's Ark to the film camera? "We need channels for acquiring film, processing and scanning. Then Lomography can hit new frontiers," emphasises Jadhav. Although the art form is a while away from achieving cult status in India like it has in parts of Asia and Europe, it certainly seems headed that way. Already, there is a growing number of lomographers coming together in Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Jaipur.

"Lomography is not about technically perfect images," says Jadhav. "We don't look at the world with the sharpness and clarity we seek in the image of today. Instead, we see glimpses, a peek here and there -- momentary visions. Lomography takes us down that road where less is more -- the 'flaws' in an image can become one's signature style."

Spot the lomo effect

Right exposure: Manoj Jadhav's Transgenders of Thailand is a work
in progress. He shot this picture with a Holga in Bulb mode

As the crow flies: Sapna Bhavnani at Gateway of India, shot with
Lomography Fisheye by Manoj Jadhav. (Below) Smackdown! The
madness of a Kushti Ring, shot with a Spinner 360 by Partha Rao

Looking glass

Lomography Timeline
1982: With a sharp lens, vignetting and extreme highlight sensitivity, the LC-A is born in the USSR.u00a0
1984: The LC-A is mass produced and popularity spreads.
1991: Two Austrian students discover the LC-A on a trip to Prague. On developing the rolls in Vienna, the atmospheric images create a stir among family, friends and strangers.
1992: They create the Lomographic Society International.u00a0
1994:u00a0The first exhibitions are held in New York and Moscow simultaneously, showing lomographs from the other city on mammoth LomoWalls.u00a0
2005: Lomography introduces the world's first compact Fisheye camera.u00a0
2010: Partha Rao joins Lomography -- the Indian saga begins.
2011: Lomography starts shipping to India and the first photowalk is conducted in Mumbai.

The Handbook: A Typical Lomo

The Forecast: Look out for
Lomo Walks: an upcoming fortnightly feature at a location near you.
LomoWall: an endless sea of lomographs in exhibition format.
Lomography City Guide: Visually rich insider guides created by and for lomographers. The Vienna and London editions are out. Partha hopes to begin work on the Mumbai copy, as a collaborative effort.