I'm wondering if this thread is to actually assertain the basis of lomography or simply to cause a heated debate.......
The purpose of the thread, was to stimulate discussion, on what is a very nebulous and debatable topic, and see if any answers floated out of it.
The term 'lomo' is undoubtedly 'trendy'; lots of people are using the term, and seemingly slapping the label randomly on whatever they like....
Questions posed were more than the five relatively direct ones offered with some degree of rhetoric, provided by final two....
Does any one have any strong opinions?
Does it really matter, as long as pictures get taken?
Seems that there are a lot of strong opinions, for or against whatever is the opinion holders idea of lomo... Yet, what actually is or might be lomo, is still rather amorphous and ambigiouse.....
Maybe better questions (for the moment) might be;
- Is the term lomo used too indiscriminately
- is a better definition of lomo required?
- If so, what?
Backing up, your earlier comment implied that anything that wasn't 'seriouse' photography is lomo.... which by inversion raises the question, "So what's seriouse photography?"
So there is capacity in Lomography to achieve good results, but I think you yourself hinted at the window of opportunity to become a form of art in identifying the "philosophy or practice, of experimenting with imperfection?" Therein, the juxtaposition of imperfection and expression is the route by which the craft of Lomography *might* find artistic merit. But I think it's a narrow window, and if I'm honest, I haven't seen it done yet.
An opinion that hints an almost polar point to Ash, in that lomo MIGHT be 'seriouse' photography, if the oportunity for artistic impression is exploited. But sticking some brackets around it, suggesting its a craft, and one that ought to be restricted to using chemical media, not digital, to effect some sort of distressed, or imperfect 'style'.
Which poses a dichotamy; on the one hand we have a camp suggesting its any non serious, non 'art' photography, another that it is firmly in the realms of 'art' photography, that's its actual aim!
Without getting heated, its a good debate!
But to find common ground.... I think that there is a common feeling that 'crap' photo's are crap photo's, and whether you label them lomo to try and justify them or not, they are still crap.... from which stems certain resentments, whether the label is justifying perhaps even stifling 'better' photography, while promoting or at least stimulating the chemical media.
.... ooooh GODD! I've stepped back in time twenty years to C&G class and critiquing each others pics of the week!
(in a few years time, will we have people raving over the awful results from early el cheapo digital cameras?)..........
I already am... see pics earlier in thread! Those three were taken with a Jenopik 1.3Mp, that was a 'cheapie' in 2003 at i think £70!
It was a cheap convenience, and starting a family, any-photo was better than none. Fact that devoid of process & print costs, it was almost free to use, it got me taking a lot more photo's and trying stuff I wouldn't really have considered with film.
In that regard, despite being digital, I was applying a fair bit of lomo-thinking, and would agree on that score, with Ash, that might allow the lomo-tag to be applied to them. But.....
Doing the technical photo's for Land-Rover or motorbike mechanics started basically through using that little digi-pact to take snaps to illiustrate answers to questions on the Land-Rover forum... re-writing the Haynes manual..... was a progression from that; Had I been restricted by having to shoot film, I would have never even attempted... bad enough I was 'wasting' so much time and money messing with heaps of old junk in the first place, according to then missus, without spending even more money to take pretty pictures of such 'scrap'!
That little camera? Limited as it was, still made files with a pix width I still have to re-size for most display purposes, and I liked the fact that it had an optical view-finder, when things got a bit awkward to see on the screen or I needed to save battery life. And the picture from it, though technically not wonderful, were, for the most part 'fit for purpose' as far as family snaps, recording off-road adventures, and illustrating mechanics.
It's not 'analogue'.... and it was for a large part fairly 'serious' photography. Maybe not setting out to make 'art' or create stunning images worthy to hang on my wall... but photo's fit for purpose.
So yes, and in the none too distant future, I can see people hunting out early second hand digi-cams, and praising them for variouse merits, whether to do with inherent aborations, or the levels of control, or even restrictions in control, in a similar way to people playing with old chemical-cameras now.
But I think a linch pin in the debate is the matter.... "Fit for Purpose!
And the debate is drawing out another question; that of 'ART' photography....
Old debate. IS making images worthy to hang on a wall the type of photography that has most merit, or even the only form that has any!?
I wrote this, originally as a post on the Land-Rover forum, ten years ago.
the Lake Vynwy Adventure!, having finished renovating my first Land-Rover... proving that there WAS some benefit to SWMBO, we took it to Wales and had a go at 'Off-Roading'. And I wrote article on the experience, using photos to illustrate it. Its not worthy of publication in National-Geographic; and even Land-Rover Monthly probably wouldn't have considered a submission, even if they were truly stuck to find column inches about diff-locks, ball-joint gaiters and transmission brake seals! But worthy of a 'club' news-letter or web-site. Which in essence is what it was for.
The pictures are not 'fantastic'; but they were fit for purpose. They showed some Land-Rovers doing some fairly interesting stuff, what they were built for; driving rough roads, and some of the wonderful scenary you could get to see exploring such roads by Land-Rover.
You may not have much interest in Land-Rovers, or Green-Laning; might even have some pretty dire objections to the persuit; but, besides the point; the photos has a purpose, and were fit for that purpose, and were interesting to people who like that kind of thing; and response from the original post, encouraged me to photo-document other green-laning adventures... long before 'Blogging' became 'in-vogue'....
They aren't art; I wouldn't really want to print any to stick on my wall, and I took them, and they have my family in some of them! Easy to deride them, then as mere 'snap-shots'... and being honest, YES they are 'mere' snap-shots, for the most part. But lets think where that takes us?
Define 'art' as a picture you would want to put on your wall, and suggest that such 'art' is the most meriteouse form of photography, the pinicle of the craft.
We've taken a tangent off talking about wedding photos....... a dangerouse topic... so forgive be using a broad brush fairly indescriminately! Wedding photo's are probably THE most often framed and hung photo's taken. Give or take school-portraits.
[broad brush alert] Large proportion of wedding / school photo's are not particularly wonderful examples of the photographers craft, and despite being the ones most often hung, suggesting they are 'art', an awful lot of them, are peculiarly production line pictures; made to a tried and trusted formula, without an awful lot of insight or creativity. Off the shelf poses, off the shelf groupings, out the manual lighting, focus, etc etc etc.
There isn't necesserily a lot of creativity or imagination in the genre... and probably wouldn't be expected, or even apreciated if it was applied! Bride wants to see smiling groom, happy dad, and bunch of flowers, in front of church. Nice and tidy, nice soft focus, no bizare colours wiered angles, JUST the routine every day regulation wedding photo.... Hung on the wall, framed and on the matle-piece it may be.... art it probably isn't.
Or have I just struck on the exception to the rule? I dont think so. I dont think that the hang it on the wall idea works to define 'art' photography. If it did? then the glamour/soft porn photo's from the Pirelli Calender on the wall in the Tyre fitters, to the torn centre folds from Razzle in the porta-loo on the building site would be 'art'....
So, hanging on the wall, probably doesn't give us the bracket to define art photography, and we have already demoted one genre of specialty photography... even though, it Is a craft, it does take skill, and the photo's are fit-for-purpose, viewed and cherished.
People go running back into burning houses to save wedding photos!
Sod the Vangaugh on the wall! Thats insured, we can buy another..... OK, maybe not the same.... but how many times can you look at the same picture of a bunch of flowers before you get bored with it! Wanted to re-decorate anyway.... think we'll have a Picasso next!
Which takes us off at yet another tangent, about values, and where we place the value in a photo... any photo..... what about that photo is of real value, real merit and real importance?
Fitness for Purpose.
Lomo-movement was concieved long before digital photography existed, and there was any question of the merits of 'Chemical' vs 'Digital'. So, to my mind, lomo cannot be defined purely by the medium of film. Maybe a division that the lomo-movement have latched onto; and may be a populoar contemprary view of lomo, as strictly 'analogue'.... but it existed before there was an alternative, so that cant be the be all and end all to it? So where did it start? Maybe if we look at the oragins, we may find some leads.
Term coined in the early 90's as the iron curtain fell, and 'cheap' low tech, low quality, soviete 'family' snap-shot cameras, appeared on the Western market, in counter-point to the ever more spohisticated, ever more precice and perhaps clinical cameras commonly available.
So lomo came out of a pre-existing movement, a back-lash to, for the sake of a better word, 'pretentious' photography, ever more concerned with the technical merit of making a clearer, more precise better controlled image, rather than capturing something 'more'.... possibly the best word 'emotive'.
I mentioned fitness for purpose. A crux. If a photo is taken for a purpose, then its 'quality' irrespective of technical merit, may be assessed by whether it fulfills that purpose.
Lomo-Pholosophy, latched on to taking photo's for their own sake; Always carry your camera; dont think, just shoot. Grab whats happening around you.
On that basis; an alwful lot of quite serious; very pretentious photographers, taking pictures, for thier own sake, WITHOUT an original purpose.... are going lomo..... the only difference is that they are taking the camera with them.. to FIND something to take a photo of... which is 'un-lomo'.... and may be inverted, in so far as an awful lot of supposedly 'lomo' photographers are following the same path, actually thinking of taking photo's and then going looking for them....
And in either case, HOPING that they will find a purpose for the photo's they take AFTER the event, and looking for any merit in them to justify having taken them.....
And getting to a nub... if its possible.... very fact that the debate is envoking strong feeling, and people are taking it rather seriousely and being pretentiouse about it...... is this mere irony?
Or has Lomo evolved to be something different, that is more seriouse, that is more than a rebel yell to consider more than the mere mechanics?
.... and if so..... we are back to the beginning!.......
What IS lomo?
And trying to answer that, does the thinking to get there, influence in any way, the way we look at our own photography.... and the point... beyond accademic interest.... having pondered the variouse arguments eminating from the debate, will that influence us in any way, well we look at our own work any differently, will we re-consider, perhaps the value we put on different aspects of our photography? If so... without any-one being right or wrong, we might all benefit.
