By Shiv Ahuja
Who said film is dying!?
Lomography is an organization dedicated to promoting analogue/film photography. Lomo has a very active community all over the globe with people posting photographs, participating in competitions to win store credit {piggies}, offline meetups and workshops and a whole bunch of other events.
Remember those overly saturated, slightly blurry snapshots with wonky colours? well they've probably been taken with a lomo camera. Broadly speaking, these pictures can be known to have varying degrees of imperfections which seems to make them more desirable than your perfectly exposed everyday digital snapshot. The tradeoff is price vs. hipster cred of course :-p.
Getting your hands on lomo gear meant either someone had to bring it down for you from outside or then you'd have to pay excessive shipping and duty to make sure the camera reaches you. Lomography India has made this whole process a little easier. For starters, shipping to India from the Hong Kong store is much cheaper than before and as of last week, Lomography India has its first retail outlet, too. Unfortunately, us Delhi folks don't have it that easy as of now since the shop is currently based in Mumbai. A quick look at the Lomo India facebook page and you'll see what I mean.
Its interesting that they've somewhat taken a larger stance by talking about film photography in general and not just photography with their own cameras and film. So even if you're not shooting with a lomo camera or on lomo film, you'll still find enough information on photography through them to keep you busy for a while!
I mostly enjoy shooting portraits with my lomo-cameras. Sometimes it puts the subject at ease when you don't have a big black camera and lens staring down at them.
If you think Instagram is fun, wait till you give this a shot!
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To start out with there are a couple of 35mm cameras that can be purchased through their online shop.
La Sardina {Approximately INR 3,500 excluding shipping} Diana Mini {Approximately INR 3,000 excluding shipping} Lomography Fisheye 2 {Approximately INR 4,000 excluding shipping} Holga 35mm BC {Approximately INR 3,500 exlcuding shipping}
And then there are several film options, but to start out with 'Kodak Gold' is available at most neighbourhood photo-labs for INR 120-150 depending on the ISO sensitivity. Higher the ISO, the more sensitive the film is to light which means better performance in low light situations for a given exposure setting {in most lomo cameras you can't adjust exposure, which adds to the fun and unpredictability}. Once you're comfortable with your camera and know how to load and use it, lomography has a whole bunch of interesting films to offer. Otherwise, If you want to score some cheap expired film, a quick metro ride to the photo-market in Chandni Chowk will definitely help.
Once you've shot the film you can log on to www.lomography.in for a list of photo-labs that offer cross-processing and other such services.