In my never ending lust for all things cheese, I love the Lomo camera. A crummy Soviet era plastic piece of (#@!&) history that has been adopted by hordes of Birkenstock wearing Democrats. This doesn't fit well with my upright manly persona, but I love the challenge of a light leaky, plastic lensed, toy camera. There are times when a limitation can be a real muse for me, and the Lomo camera is massive limitation and constant fail. The problem with Lomography is the extensive time and energy needed to manual shoot, this mixed with expensive film, batteries from the 1960s, every time you pull the shutter you feel like a sniper praying to the photogods to just make it all happen. Al this for just some cross processed pop color that while extremely rewarding when the entire universe allows it, in reality is just all too rare. I have photography outings with maybe 10 winners out of 100, now I do realize that's the feel-good fun of smoking dope and playing with your little camera, but coming from the Nikon DSLR world I demand invariable, rigid perfection.
This quick review is for some alternatives to the plastic beast. Firstly Adobe Photoshop CS4, this will be quick example. Drop a vignette, draw your curves, and heavy saturate. With the proper layering/masking you can achieve a great Lomo feel, or Holga,or any other plastic junky feel. This method sucks mostly because it kills the Lomo spirit: it is not from the hip, it feels too much like work, and too little like beatnik street photography...
Another option is the often rare but mega fun Minimo, this is a great keychain camera from 2006 that had some optional plastic snap in lenses. These lenses made some great Lomo-esque effects and the camera itself produced one of the best digital vignette grain that is the heart of all Lomography. These cameras are rarely available outside of eBay, although some trashy import sites have a crate on occasion. If ever an authentic plastic lensed Lomo alternative did appear, I'm quite sure it would be heavily adopted by the masses of Widespread Panic denizens of the world. Sony are you listening?
The final solution may live in the App store on your iPhone. Lately a handful of Lomo stylized
camera apps have appeared that hold great promise! One that keeps the Lomo spirit alive is Toy Camera by the famed developer Takayuki Fukatsu. The description: The most sold camera app in Japan. This simple application changes your iphone to the fun toy-camera. You do not need any difficult setting, all you need is just take a photo. ToyCamera automatically adds several effects that is chosen from your custom effect list. ToyCamera is more focused on "Fun feeling of ToyCamera", rather than a functionality of an image filtering software. If you prefer photo-shooting to photo-editing, this is the one you must use. How true it is. This app fully captures the random fun of Lomography/Toy shooting. Sometimes the results are horrific, you only get one chance, and every once in a while a gem... This may be the actual future of digital lomography software!
I will continue to update the digital Lomography revolution as it occurs and hopefully in the near future some great cameras will be available, until that time just whip out your iPhone and follow these simple rules:
1. Take your Lomo (iPhone/minimo/photoshop) everywhere you go
2. Use it anytime - day and night
3. Lomography is not an interference with your life but a part of it
4. Get as close as possible to the objects of you lomographic desire
5. Don't think
6. Be fast
7. You don't have to know beforehand what is on your film
8. Nor afterwards
9. Try the shot from the hip
10. Don't worry about (golden) rules
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