Sunday, March 04, 2007

Faux Lomo-ed

Lomography was originally an Austrian commercial trademark for photography-related products and services. Nowadays, the term stands for an approach, philosophy or attitude. The emphasis is on casual, snapshot photography, as in shooting from the hip. Lomo images are colorful and quirky. Lomo enthusiasts aspire for happy accidents such as over-saturation, light leaks, vignetting, over- and underexposure, multiple exposures and so on. Lomo cameras are crappy cameras, but the results are cool.

Some months ago I actually thought about buying a lomo camera. My endearingly snooty French art connoisseur friend (love `ya, dearie) huffed and puffed at the thought, indignant that I would consider getting one instead of a slick Canon SLR. (There are cheap lomos out there, see. You can get one from Amazon for as little as $18.) I suppose it's a matter of taste. To cut the story short, I didn't get a lomo. (Which was just as well, since I found myself already overwhelmed with 3 cameras - an SLR, a compact, and a phone camera - during my recent trip.) Happily, I found some how-to tips on creating faux lomo images at Flicker. This is my first try (top image = original image, bottom one = faux lomo-ed):

Eh. I had thought the original image was colorful enough. But now it looks washed-out in comparison to the lomofied version. Here is another one I did. Pretty cool, I think. But that's me. Feel free to be horrified.

Shades of Enlightenment

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the title you put on the lomofied version -- "shades of enlightenment". I am also highly enamored of the original version: it looks so mysterious and mythical!

Anonymous said...

*bursts out laughing*
you are killing me.
If I hab been told that one beautiful day, you were going to tread the Angkor precincts, armed with a MARVELLOUS Canon Eos, and that afterwards you were going to create Lomo effects on the pictures, I wouldn't have believed it.... *sigh*
To reassure you, this lomo fashion seems to be circumscribed to Asia: never heard of it in my country yet. *fears*