Can Digital Camera Create Lomo Photos?
I was answering some of the questions a Slovenian journalist shot to me through email about the Lomo World Congress, more specifically her focus was "on the subject of analog vs. digital, film vs. pixels, future of toy photography etc". Here's some excerpts along side with some Lomo pictures I recently developed.
The unknown or random factor of film photography, such as light leak, double exposure, cross processing, sprocket effect, pin-hole etc, just cannot be replaced by digital camera at this moment. I'm sure in the future there will be digital cameras adding lomo effects to stimulate sales and distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowd, but for now low-tech is still giving us a lot of fun the digital can't. On the other hand, digital is just too perfect to the point it is dull to look at digital photos, coz everybody can take a good digital picture nowadays, lomo and low-tech is something so different its going to be recorded in the history of photography for certain.
What do you think is the future of plastic toy cameras or film for that matter?
Like pen and paper, we thought PDA would replace most of the pen/paper business, look at Moleskine, Rhodia, etc etc now. Like greeting cards, we thought business would drop like hell after e-card, look at the stores they still have huge planograms of cards. in our case, sales did slowed a bit but it is stable and strong business. So all these old technology are renewed one way or the other and survived. People still like the solid feeling of objects and emotional attachment, e.g. my father's fountain pen, a nice mechanical watch, the sound of Canon F1 shutter curtain, the tactile feeling is still very important in our world culture.
Film photography, I love what lomo did, they keep film photograhy and photo developers alive. I love what Fuji film did, new film cameras and film types (e.g. Natura Classica camera and films) keeps consumer interests strong. I was disappointed by Polaroid moving away from their strongest instant photography to a highly competitive digital market, from #1 and uniqueness to no ranking at all and unable to differentiate themselves.
For work, you need accuracy and speed. For life, you need to slow down and appreciate technique and the deeper meaning of everything. After all, many digital stuffs (such as the notes you wrote on your PDA and the eCards you received) are not really heartfelt enough and tend to disappear from your life in a very short time.
I think more importantly if you need a different aesthetics to bring out the good of your photography, it sucks. For me, as a stationery and gift buyer, I like pen and paper a lot because it slows you down to think of the more important issues, to THINK before you scribble. Digital lets you take thousands of crap photos to find several good/deep ones, analog forces you to IMAGINE before you take one photo at a time. So I guess there are people like me treasuring the technique (no matter how simple) required and the connotation (thinking, imagination) behind analog technologies. I don't mean digital denies all of these but in this age of the internet and multi-tasks, we are too tempted to think less do more. Analog forces you to concentrate on the essence of the subject matter.
Comments
It's kind of sad that some people have this thoughts
*sorry for my lame english OO*