Lomographs

I had previously used a Lubitel medium format camera a good few years back, and didn't really have much fun with it. The plastic body and the fact that is wasn't light tight made it pretty tricky to use. Having to seal it with electrical tape lost its appeal pretty early on. It finally got thrown in the bin after many years of sitting redundantly in the cupboard. 

That though was before the Lo-Fi photography movement that is Lomography came along and the characteristics of the eastern block cameras were seen as pretty cool. 

After seeing the growing number of LOMO type cameras popping up (E- Bay and the high street Urban Outfitters) and the images taken with these appearing on various web sites, the subject of Lomography came up whilst visiting friends. Always looking for alternatives to straight forward photography and the march of the digital takeover, my friends thought that a LOMO LC-A was gathering dust in a cupboard - pretty much the same as the Lubitel languished unloved under my stairs. 

After a rummage the pretty much unused LC-A was produced. Original and with its plastic presentation box it looked a decent point and shoot. My friends told me that it hadn't really been used, and most probably saw the light of day back in the early 1990s. 

A quick review of the web indicated that this one was probably a early Russian one, and not one of the current Chinese impersonators. Getting the basic instructions from the web, I set out to try to get some images. The first roll of film through it was an expired Fuji Reala. To really try to emphasise the characteristics of the LC-A, I wanted to get the film cross processed, alas the outfit who I use locally stopped E6 processing (Huh?) so regular processing was performed. I was pretty impressed with the images from the camera. The automatic shutter speed performed well, everything seemed exposed correctly with the characteristic overexposed centre and dark edges. The focus of the shots were hit and miss, with selection of the estimated distance from your subject selector used with liberal disregard for any real image sharpness. Most of the time it was left at infinity. The images on the film were spaced almost evenly, the small guide sprocket made of pure plastic in the internals of the camera did a good job to advance the film frame by frame. 

So what happens when you load one of these cameras up and just shoot, forget the usual rules. Shoot anything? Factor in out of date film and cross processing and you might be in for a surprise....

Cross processed Agfa CT Precisa 100 - This film expired in June 2006. 

Cross processed Kodak BW400CN - This film expired in September 2007

Cross processed Fuji Reala 100 - This expired at least 3 years ago….