Lomography
Encyclopedia
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
of Lomographische AG, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
for products and services catering to the Global Modern art community of Lomographic photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO
LOMO
LOMO or Leningrad Optical Mechanical Amalgamation is a manufacturer of advanced optical instruments, medical equipment, consumer still and movie cameras, projectors, lenses, film editors, splicers, professional sound recorders for motion-picture production based in St. Petersburg, Russia...
PLC of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. LOMO PLC created and produced the 35 mm
135 film
The term 135 was introduced by Kodak in 1934 as a designation for cartridge film wide, specifically for still photography. It quickly grew in popularity, surpassing 120 film by the late 1960s to become the most popular photographic film format...
LOMO LC-A
Lomo LC-A
The LOMO LC-A is a fixed lens, 35 mm film, leaf shutter, zone focus, compact camera introduced in 1984. The design is based on the Cosina CX-2....
Compact Automat camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
— which became the centerpiece of Lomography's marketing and sales activities. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina
Cosina
is a designer and manufacturer of cameras and lenses, and a glassmaker, based in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.-History:Cosina is the successor to Nikō , a company set up as a manufacturer oflenses in 1959...
CX-1 and introduced in the early 1980s.
In 1991, the Austrian founders of Lomography discovered the Lomo LC-A. As the company states, they were "charmed by the unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry" images that the camera produced. After a series of international art exhibitions and aggressive marketing work, Lomography signed an exclusive distribution agreement with LOMO PLC — thereby becoming the sole distributor of all Lomo LC-A cameras outside of the Soviet Union.
Since the introduction of the original Lomo LC-A, Lomography has produced and marketed an entire line of their own branded analog cameras. Most Lomographic cameras are designed to produce a single photographic effect. For example, the Lomography Fisheye
Fisheye
Fisheye may refer to:* The eye of a fish or other aquatic creature resembling a fish* Fisheye lens, used in photography* Fisheye, a character from the anime Sailor Moon* FishEye , a revision control browser by Atlassian Software Systems...
camera features a built-in wideangle lens, and shoots fisheye-distorted photos. In 2005, production of the original Lomo LC-A was discontinued. Its replacement, the LC-A+, was introduced in Fall 2006. The new camera, made in China rather than Russia, featured the original Russian lens manufactured by LOMO PLC. This changed as of mid-2007 with the lens now made in China as well.
Eastman Kodak
Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
's concept of the "Kodak moment", the Lomography website endorses a motto of "Don't Think, Just Shoot". This motto is accompanied by The Ten Golden Rules which are supposed to encourage spontaneity, odd angles, and taking photos anywhere, while minimizing considerations of formal technique. Typical lomography cameras are deliberately low-fidelity and inexpensively constructed. Some cameras make use of multiple lenses and rainbow-colored flashes, or exhibit extreme optical distortions and even light leaks.
Current models marketed by Lomographische AG include Lomo LC-A
Lomo LC-A
The LOMO LC-A is a fixed lens, 35 mm film, leaf shutter, zone focus, compact camera introduced in 1984. The design is based on the Cosina CX-2....
, Diana
Diana camera
The Diana camera is a plastic-bodied box camera utilizing 120 rollfilm. Most versions take 16 photographs per roll in a non-standard format of 4.2cm square using a simple plastic meniscus lens, although some are capable of 12 6 x 6cm exposures...
, Holga, Holga 35mm, Actionsampler, Frogeye, Pop-9, Oktomat, Fisheye, Fisheye2, Colorsplash, Colorsplash Flash, F-stop Bang, SuperSampler, Horizon 202
Horizon (camera)
The Horizon is a mechanical swing-lens panoramic camera. It is manufactured by Krasnogorskiy Zavod in Krasnogorsk, Russia, better-known for their range of Zenit cameras.Cameras with similar functions include the Noblex and Widelux....
, Seagull
Seagull Camera
Shanghai Seagull Camera Ltd is a Chinese camera maker located in Shanghai, China. Seagull is the oldest camera maker in China. The product line of Seagull includes TLR cameras, SLR cameras, folding cameras, CCD and SLR camera lenses, large-format cameras, film, night vision scopes, and angle...
TLR
Twin-lens reflex camera
A twin-lens reflex camera is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens" , while the other is used for the viewfinder system, which is usually viewed from above at waist level...
, and Smena 8M
Smena 8M
Smena is a series of low-cost 35 mm film cameras manufactured in the Soviet Union by the LOMO factory from 1953 to 1991. These cameras were designed to be inexpensive and accessible to the public, made of bakelite or black plastic for the later models, and totally manually operated. Even winding...
. The company also resells dead stock Polaroid cameras and Russian dead stock - the sort normally acquired at "quirky, old-school camera shops," as the company's web site puts it.
The Lomo LC-A lens effect can be digitally emulated with photo-editing software such as GIMP
GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...
or Photoshop. In addition, the company's promotional web site for Lomography showcases many high-contrast photographs - with unusual saturation and color - that were created using the technique called cross processing
Cross processing
Cross processing is the procedure of deliberately processing photographic film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film. The effect was discovered independently by many different photographers often by mistake in the days of C-22 and E-4...
in which film intended for developing in slide chemistry (E-6
E-6 process
The E-6 process is a chromogenic photographic process for developing Ektachrome, Fujichrome and other color reversal photographic film....
) is processed in photographic negative chemistry (C-41
C-41 process
C-41 is a chromogenic color print film developing process. C-41, also known as CN-16 by Fuji, CNK-4 by Konica, and AP-70 by AGFA, is the most popular film process in use, with most photofinishing labs devoting at least one machine to this development process....
), and vice versa. This technique can be employed with any film camera and can be somewhat mimicked with digital software as well. However the use of digital manipulation to create these effect goes somewhat against the principals of Lomography and is generally far more satisfying to achieve these effects purely from the camera and film's processing itself.
As an art movement
The Lomographic Society International provides Lomographers with galleries, stores and "embassies" dedicated to the growth, support and public exposure of the art. Supporting budding Lomographers through social events such as exhibits, educational workshops, exposure galleries to encourage public enthusiasm and awareness, as well as providing retail supplies, gallery stores and rally places for Lomographers to socialise. The society is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, where most of its events are organised.An example of the society's cultural events showcasing Lomographers' talents is the Lomokikuyu competition, which raises money
Fundraiser
A fundraiser is an event or campaign whose primary purpose is to raise money for a cause. See also: fundraising. A fundraiser can also be an individual or company whose primary job is to raise money for a specific charity or non-profit organization...
for eye surgeries and vision care in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, in partnership with Viennese vision aid organisation Light for the World. The organisation also organises the Lomography World Congress, an international conference of practitioners held in varying host cities.
The society maintains a Web-based Lomography magazine, which provides a photo archive storage for their work. Articles track trends and ideas about new fun methods to photograph. An example is "Lomography the Role Playing Game", played with dice. Aficionados of the hobby can blog their own tutorials to share their discoveries, fostering enthusiasm with the Lomographic art. The site also celebrates the work of Lomographers with online exhibits and competitions.