Today, I had a happy accident.  Today, I accidentally (re)stumbled across the art of Lomography.  Today, I finally found a genuine use for my iPhone camera.  Today, I had a ‘Eureka’ moment.

Let me explain…

Photography is an art.  In the end, it’s all about the aesthetics.  Beautiful photos opportunities rear their heads in the most unlikely of places.  There are things, that, unfortunately, generally need to be present in order to produce most photos.  One, not surprisingly, is a camera of some sort.  Kit. Equipment. Tin. Glass.   Also needed is some form of technique.  Rules of thirds, exposures, shutter speeds, so on and so forth.  Not to say that these things are the be all and end all, but they help.

So.  Now take the large proportion of that clutter out of the equation and out of the process.  So – what do we have left?

Raw potential – that’s what.

What am I babbling on about?  Well… I love photography; that much is clear.  However – sometimes, I feel like having to make sure I have kit with me (from camera, to tripod, to batteries, to memory cards, blah blah until the end of time), as well as having to carefully consider technique and the pressure of finding a shot to start the inspiration flowing, end up producing a grand total of bugger all.  You can easily end up being stifled by everything and anything you have with you, be it in your kit bag, or in your head.  So – what about the times you’ve got too much in your head to fit any more in (never mind photographic technique!).  What about the times (and there are many), when you don’t have your kit with you?

There is something that many of us now carry about our person that is capable of producing basic reproductions of the scenes around us.  That something is our mobile phone.  The majority now have some sort of camera in-built.  This applies to my very own iPhone.   I have a 1st Gen iPhone 3G, with the 2-odd Megapixel camera, no flash etc.  To use an internet cliché – meh.  Its pretty useless in most situations.  Bar brightly lit scenes, with nobody actually moving, it’s output it is, at best, severely lacking.  Mostly, I’ve looked at these shots and tried to work out how I can make them better – turn them into something beautiful.   Its not an easy task,  and has meant that the iPhone has really been mostly confined to the limits of I-haven’t-got-anything-else-with-me-but-want-this-snapshot trivialities and keepsakes.

Then I had bit of a back-to-front idea.  Instead of trying to bring up to standard something that was not, why not play on it’s weaknesses, and revel in its low fidelity?  In other words, rather than messing about trying to make them better, I would see if I could make them ‘worse’ (in a manner of speaking).  I started to punch various synonyms of lo-fi photography into google, and came back with some interesting stuff.  Not surprisingly, there are a lot of bods out there with similar ideas.  It seemed that lo-fi photography was (paraphrasing the Wikipedia entry), a reaction to the general perceived ease of taking technically perfect photos in the digital age.

Another term which reared it’s head was Lomography.  Again – from the Wikipedia entry…

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, “happy accidents,” and alternative film processing are often considered part of the “Lomographic Technique.”

There are 10 ‘rules’ of Lomography (again, more details can be found here)

1. Take your camera everywhere you go
2. Use it any time – day and night
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it
4. Try the shot from the hip
5. Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6. Don’t think (william firebrace)
7. Be fast
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film
9. Afterwards either
10. Don’t worry about any rules

So… Lomography is the art of photography sans rules.  I like the sound of this.  Something a bit more freeform, a bit less constrained by the aformentioned technique and kit. I’d heard of this a while back, but only today linked the iPhone camera to the possibilities.

Thing is, the rules above are great, but some of the rest of the philosophy is a little skewed.  The whole thing is based around the ‘Lomo’ brand of Russian Cameras, and shooting on 120 film.  I’d love to do that, but unfortunately, both associated cost, and time would be a hindrance.  Unfortunately, the community based around the art tend to be rather protective about what can be defined as Lomography.  Don’t get me wrong – I’d love to do it properly.  I started out in darkrooms, and the smell of developer and fixer is still something that takes me back to some of my most formative and creative days as a photographer.  However, for now, I’d have to be happy to embrace the philosophy encompassed by the ten rules above, without conforming completely to the standard.  In essence – dancing round the first nine rules, whist fully embracing the tenth.

I’m going to give it a go with my iPhone.  I’ve set up a separate Flickr account, as I want this to be as freeform and spontaneous as possible.  I don’t want these photos muddying my standard Flickr Photostream, as I don’t want my standard photos muddying this.   I want it separate.  The ‘Lomostream’ will be at :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/axemanlomo

It’ll also be on a constantly playing slideshow on my homepage for the time being, which will look something like this :-

Well.. truth be told, it’ll look exactly like that, and will update in real-time as I upload more shots.

Let’s see where this takes us shall we?