https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TiAsvYgyqU&feature=emb_logo
Lomography is an international communication project. They look at very mundane things that do not look exciting themselves but say things about the society that we live in and the way we live our lives. Lomography is about lifestyle and philosophy. It's passionate, democratic and playful.
"I love details, I love other people, I have a super positive feeling about the little things."
Simone White: "It really opens your eyes, always having a camera on you. I stopped thinking, and just started shooting everything. It's a way of thinking and engaging. Lomography is about the little details in life."
The story of the Lomography Society:
Wolfgang Stranziger and Matthias Fiegl met at boy scouts and became good friends. They moved to Vienna for their studies and began living together an a very student prominent area. It was a typical student apartment with a lot of people coming and going. The apartment was always busy and they discussed philosophy, architecture, and art every night. In this environment, Matthias began taking photos with the Lomo Kompakt camera. Due to the Russian lens, the photos came out more colourful and the edges were slightly black, making the focus the centre of the picture.
Very quickly they began to popularise the camera. After a couple of months, around fifty people in Vienna were using the Lomo Kompakt. Stranziger and Fiegl liked that all of these people were looking at the world through the same lens, and wanted to organise an exhibition - but first they had to form a society (this was a very Viennese thing to do, and they also just found it funny). Following the society they introduced the 10 Golden Roles of Lomography.
They loved holding exhibitions and throwing parties, but could not get sponsors to pay for it. So they paid for it by selling cameras. They told people that bought cameras that they were not just buying cameras, but a membership to the Lomography Society. The problem, however, was smuggling the cameras out of Russia. They had to travel 2 hours out Moscow to find a box of 700 Lomo cameras.
Stranziger and Fiegl decided to branch out to New York and Moscow. In America, it was still illegal to promote a Russian product.
The story of LOMO the company:
For almost a century the huge Lomo factory in St. Petersburg has been at the forefront of soviet optics. Lomo is a multi-faceted company, active and science and technology. Their products include cameras, telescopes, night surveillance equipment, equipment for the navy, and rocket components. The company began in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War. The company was set up to make optical instruments for the Russian Army. Employees were treated harshly and there were riots, then in 1917 the Socialist Revolution took place. Workers took over the factory, but then the Civil War began and the workers left to defend the Revolution. 200 stayed, and conditions were harsh. It was then when they produced the first Soviet film camera.
The Lomography Society wrote to the people at LOMO, who were completely unaware of the reason for the rising popularity of their camera, and invited them to an exhibition in Moscow. However, the invitation was sent on April 1st - and so they thought it was a joke.
A lot of the new LOMO cameras take multiple pictures at once. For example, the Action Sampler Camera has 4 lenses and takes images that are intended to look new and unique, and are focused on movement.
In Hong Kong, two Lomographers started a project called A Day In The Life - where they use Lomography to document their days.
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