This last Christmas I asked for, and received, one of these babies.
A Diana F+ lo-fi, analog camera. It uses 120 film and takes those fun, dreamy square photos that so many of us try to duplicate with our Instagram apps. Myself included. I still love my iPhone photos, but I wanted to step back in time for a moment and start taking analog photos again.
In his article for Smashing Magazine, titled “The Disturbing Beauty of Oversaturated Pictures and Lomography ,” Vailancio Rodriguez says this of lomography, “The characteristics of Lomo photographs are oversaturated colors, extreme optical distortions, rainbow-colored subjects, off-kilter exposure, blurring and alternative film processing, all things usually considered bad in photography. In short, Lomography is the act of taking photographs without thinking, and ignoring the established rules of “good” photography.” Sounds like fun, right?
I used two rolls of film over the holidays, and I finally got to pick them up from being developed the other day. Well, I got to pick up one roll. Wal-Mart has misplaced the second. I will continue to harass them until they find it.
When I opened the envelope, I was instantly amused. Inside, I found this note:
What a nice way for the film lab to tell me they think my photos are really, really bad. They only charged me $1.50 for them!
There are only 12 or 16 on a roll of 120 film, depending on what size you format the camera to take. For the first roll, I chose 12. Of the 12, only 3 are worth sharing. Even they aren’t that great.
I’ve got a whole lot of blurry going on. I took most of these indoors, in low light, and it’s obvious. I can’t wait until the sun starts coming out, and it’s warm enough for me to play with this camera outdoors. I do like my New Year’s self portrait, though. It has a lot of that bleeding light that the Diana is famous for.
Here’s to trying new things! And hoping that I get better at it!
Snap. Eat. Run. 