DON'T THINK, SHOOT

What is lomography?


Lomo wall, Lomo london gallery, 2001


In the early 1990s, a group of Viennese students took a trip to Prague, and started a new style of artistic experimental photography, using a small Russian camera called LOMO KOMPKT AUTOMAT. They experiment on taking as many photographs as possible, in the most impossible situations possible, from the most unusual positions possible. The result was COLOURFUL, CRAZY, and UNFAMILIAR.

The idea of lomography is to experiment, go crazy, as strange angles, blurry images, shadow round the edges, raw and unexpected details are believed, by the lomographers, to be “the beating pulse of the experience”, captured in the snapshots.






















10 rules of lomography

1. Take your camera everywhere you go
2. Use it anytime 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 object of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6. Don’t think
7. Be fast
8. You don’t have to know before hands what you captured on film
9. Afterwards either
10. Don’t worry about any rules

DON'T THINK, SHOOT(sketchbook)

unpredictable graphics(SKETCHBOOK)

“All messed up (unpredictable graphics)”, Anna Gerber
“Excess Fashion and the underground in the 80’s”, Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi
“20th Century Photography”, Edited by Simone Phillippi, Cologne
“Auguste Rodin”, Ludwig Goldscheider
“First Choice”, Edited by Ken Cato
“gasbook05 TOMATO”, Edited by Toru Hachiga
“Futurism and Photography”, Edited by Julian Honer
“Shomei Tomatsu, Skin of the nation”, Edited by Joseph N. Newland
“Experimental formats and packaging”, Edited by Roger Facett Tang and Daniel Mason
“Violence and Serenity, Late Buddhist Sculpture”, Edited by Natasha Reichle
"Through a woman's lens" 160 pages of 28 artists from 12 countires amd 4 continents, published by the lomographic society

"ALL MESSED UP (UNPREDICTED GRAPHICS)" ANNA GERBER

The book explores the important role that mistakes and accidents play in the creative process.

In aiming for perfection, things often go wrong. However, sometimes these mistakes and accidents end up being an advantage. Contrary to the popular belief, mistakes can put the work forwards. We can think of these mistakes as ideas, in terms of process or even invention.

“A MISTAKE PROMPTED THE DISCOVERY OF PENiCiLLin, AND ALSO PLAYED IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE INVENTIONS OF EVERYDAY THINGS SUCH AS TEABAGS,POST IT NOTES, THE X- RAY, IVORY SOAP…”

PAUL VIRILIO, A French Theorist who explored the idea

“ACCIDENTS SHOULD STOP BEING SEEN AS SOMETHING THAT IS SEPERATE FROM THE WORLD AND INSTEAD BE ACCEPTED AS A PART OF THE WORLD AND HENCE ON EQUAL FOOTING WITH PERFECTION”

Since errors can benefit us sometimes, not all failure is to be avoided, not all the unexpected errors are to be an obstacle, we can use these unpredictable errors in the CREATIVE process.

MARCEL DUCHAMP TYPE FACE 2001

created by rubbing letters with sand paper, scanning them, and ALTERING them

The font is “noisy and polluted ” defined by its irregularities and disruptions

Anju Kathuria, Stephanie Weekes, Mistake Magazine 2000


Things that I bought by mistake, Chosil Kil



Greetings Emily Scott Ozzie Worksight Holiday Card 2000, Scott Santoro
- Photo taken when he was purchasing the christmas tree
- The green scribble was on the inside wall of the phone booth
"It seemed perfect when i placed it over the photo of trees I have photographed" said Santoro