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Lomography and Plastic Cameras in General When a computer program behaves in an unexpected (and usually undesirable) fashion, the nearly universal tongue-in-cheek comment by the developer is “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.” But even we software developers (a notoriously opportunistic group) don’t have the balls to jack up the price and tout such features and the things the program doesn’t have in our advertising. On the other hand, that’s exactly what the Lomo website does as reasons for buying. A hundred and fifty bucks for a 35mm, zone-focus, auto exposure, plastic camera with a lens that vignettes? Is this for real? Of course for your $150 plus $15 shipping you also get 2 free rolls of Lomofilm (36 exposures each) and free lifetime membership in the Lomographique Society – nearly as valuable as membership in the International Freelance Photographers Organization for which you also get a membership card, a handsomely engraved certificate and a lifetime subscription to their magazine. However, IFPO membership is only $39.95, leaving you just over $140 that would buy about a half dozen of Porter Camera’s plastic 35mm zone-focus cameras and a cheap light meter. The Lomo promotion, IMHO, is perhaps the biggest PR hype I’ve ever seen – blatantly created to capitalize on the popularity of plastic camera photography and sell lots and lots of their cameras at an amazing profit margin. While I’m at it – I don’t understand the plastic camera phenomenon, either. Not that I dislike plastic camera work on principle. Apart from various swap prints (many of which I like very much, thank you very much) I actually bought three plastic camera prints – not because they were plastic camera prints but because I like the prints. I certainly understand the notion of using tools that make photography less intellectual, less considered, more spontaneous – to loosen you up and help break out of ruts. However, I don’t understand why it is more liberating to do so with a plastic camera than, say, an Olympus Stylus or even a hyperfocused Nikon. I understand the notion of using a plastic camera because it is fun and reveling in the unpredictability of the results. Now unpredictability makes me crazy so it isn’t fun for me but that’s my problem. I also understand (and highly respect) the notion of a skilled artist consciously using ‘primitive’ tools and working in a ‘primitive’ style to achieve a desired effect. The three plastic camera prints that I bought are certainly in this category. The artist would have had a hell of a time making them work with his Hasselblad. What I don’t understand is the notion of plastic camera art being art because it came out of a plastic camera. Much of the plastic camera work I see in exhibits looks like the artist worked his or her butt off in the darkroom to get a halfway acceptable print out of an impossible negative. Is this liberating? Is this spontaneous? Is this fun? Strikes me as watching a dog walking on its hind legs. The amazing part is not that it does it well but that it does it at all. Neither do I understand the notion (epitomized by the Lomo website headline “DON’T THINK!”) that plastic camera work is somehow superior to, more art than, more pure than other varieties of photography. This strikes me as another bandwagon in the continuing parade of photographic fads.
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