thestoryofjory.com

If you are a lomo virgin, then I am ecstatic to be the one to pop your cherry.  Lomography, despite being a trademarked term, is commonly known as a form of photography that emphasizes the casual, “happy accidents” often found in low-fi plastic cameras.  Lomographische AG of Austria manufactures the most popular types of lomo cameras, such as the Diana and the Helga; they also foster and promote a “lomo philosophy” on their website, lomography.com.

For Valentine’s Day 2008, Tanner bought me a Diana+.  I have faithfully carted it with me on vacations and trips about town for the past 2 years – and from all those spent film rolls, there are about 16 pictures that I care to show you.  The trick of the lomo camera is that you won’t know how your pictures turn out until you get your film developed.  It shoots 12 to 16 exposures on 100 to 400 speed film, and my camera takes a 3.5″ square picture (there are also panoramic cameras and what-not).   It takes about 2 weeks to get my film processed, so you have to be patient. No instant gratification for you.  No deleting the bad shots.  Honestly, that’s one of the reasons that I’ve really enjoyed shooting with this camera – I’ve learned as much from figuring out why a roll didn’t turn out as I have from the shots that did.  It’s made me think a lot more about the fundamentals of photography, while at the same time encouraging me to just start shooting. After all, I won’t run out of battery on a wind-up camera; and the film is super cheap to develop!

I took these (untouched) photos at varying times in 2008 and 2009; you can find a much wider (and far better) selection of lomo photography at lomography.com/photos.