Point Of View
By: Matty Flader, Photo Reporter
We’re taught from a young age that certain things in the world are constant. There’s a northern star in the sky, a brain in our heads and art for those who can’t use that brain towards “something more productive”. Yet, if you ask a group of people to take their own photos of the same thing, you’ll get a myriad of results. Suddenly, the illusion of some consistent reality is shattered. Our points of view dictate what we see and how we understand. It’s so easy to think that reality is a constant and tangible construct, but what can truthfully be said to be “real” without it first being filtered through the infinitely varying human perspective? Thus, reality can only fairly be understood as socially constructed through some sort of collective agreement. This is my visual recap of Supercrawl — the way I saw things. My contribution of “something more productive” to reality.
#unignorable
By: Cindy Cui, Photo Editor
Poverty, domestic violence, social isolation and mental illness. Sometimes, the most serious problems in our communities are the ones we don’t see. By ignoring these issues, we make it more difficult for those who are suffering to find and receive the help they need. Instead, these people feel silenced, suffocated and invisible. As communities, we can help … but only if we recognize that these problems exist — only if we give them our attention. It's time that we make such issues, circumstances and stories #unignorable.
From April 6 to April 17, the Studio Art program’s 2019 graduates will present the annual SUMMA exhibition. Entitled Counterpoint, the show will be curated by Hamilton textile artist Hitoko Okada. For the first time in over 30 years, the McMaster Museum of Art will not house the show due to its ongoing updates. The exhibition will instead take place at the Cotton Factory.
McMaster Studio Arts is a small program, with the fourth year class consisting of only 19 artists. With instruction on a range of media and a focus on environmentally responsible practices, the program has produced diverse artists who care about the world around them. Counterpoint means “to combine elements” and is fitting considering the amalgamation of their various styles and the balance they try to strike within their individual works.
The graduates organized the exhibition themselves. While it gave them a chance to learn more about the lives of professional artists, it also taught them to work together. Coordinating among 19 people was not easy and after some bumps in the road to find the perfect venue, they are all relieved to see the show finally coming together.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="268" gal_title="Grad Expo - Deeshani"]
Fernando spends a fair amount of time in nature, drawing and photographing the landscape around her. Back in the studio, she takes the colours, textures and lines from the environment to create the emotional and abstract landscape paintings that she’ll be displaying at Counterpoint.
“For me, [Counterpoint is] about… this the balance between the organic and the artificialness in my work… [I]t's taking… different colors… , textures and mark making and creating harmony and balance between all those different things within one image and creating a sort of peacefulness in that work,” Fernando explained.
Throughout the process of organizing the SUMMA show, Fernando learned how to survive as an artist. She feels that she now has an art practice of her own and regards her peers as professional contacts. As she leaves McMaster to pursue teaching, she will take those skills and contacts with her.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="269" gal_title="Grad Expo - Caroline"]
For Lee, Counterpoint refers to the way her class’s wildly different works complement each other. Having spent four years critiquing and supporting one another’s practice, the exhibition represents the harmony between their different themes and materials.
The Korean-Canadian artist explores traditional Korean materials in her work. She portrays these traditional materials in a modern, digital format and then incorporates threading to unite the two ideas.
“I always get confused between Canadian and Korean aspects of myself… [T]his sense of detachment, trying to attach to something or being porous, kind of like a sponge, absorbing a lot of different cultures in order to make up my singular identity. And just like maintenance of this traditional and modern form of art,” Lee said.
Currently aiming to go into interactive design, Lee feels she learned the reality of being an artist. She has been exposed to the business side of the art world by learning to solve problems creatively and produce even without inspiration. The program’s push toward using materials to convey subtle themes has evolved Lee’s art practice.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="272" gal_title="Grad Expo - Sean"]
Cooper didn’t have a lot of purpose behind his art when he entered the studio arts program. Four years later, he feels he is a more deliberate artist and currently explores ideas around memory and coming of age. At Counterpoint, he will be presenting acrylic paintings of Westdale, where he grew up.
“[W]ith my work, I just try and talk about what that experience was like… [D]ifferent places… might not necessarily be important to other people but I guess I have certain memories there,” Cooper said.
The fact that this is the last art gathering of his university career saddens Cooper, but he knows the entire class is proud of the show. Despite the challenges they faced, they demonstrated that they could accomplish anything with collaboration. The different backgrounds and art practices of the class would not seem to mesh, but Cooper feels a nameless common thread unites their work.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="270" gal_title="Grad Expo - Delaney"]
McVeigh believes process and environmentalism brings together her diverse class’ work. A self-identified environmental artist, she explores interactions between living things with one another and with inanimate objects. Having grown up in a small town near Point Pelee National Park, she spent a lot of time in nature growing up.
McVeigh’s work for Counterpoint is a series of photolithographic prints. This long and old process of creating images is meaningful to her. She tries to present her dystopian and nonsensical images in an aesthetically pleasing way with vintage elements.
“I use a lot of vintage imagery in my work… [A]fter World War II… there was the baby boom and they created a very unstable environment where it was a throwaway society. Nothing was fixed, it's all just thrown away… And then it wasn't until the ‘90s when the environment became a very serious topic,” McVeigh explained.
Her work is personal, but the program has made her more comfortable with speaking about her art. By sharing these narratives with her classmates and professors, they all grew close. She anticipates that this graduation show will be bittersweet, but there is a lot from her time at McMaster that she will be taking with her. She learned to critique her own work and reach out for help, which will help her as she pursues a career in sustainable architecture.
After graduating with her Bachelor of Fine Arts with minors in theatre and film studies and music, Conti will be going into teaching. Her teaching program will focus on educational art programming in the community, something that Conti is an advocate for. She is excited about the fact that Counterpoint will bring her program’s work off campus and into the Hamilton community.
Conti will be showing a five-piece installation consisting of floating boxes with deconstructed paintings in them. Her work revolves around her experiences with depression and anxiety to open a dialogue about mental health.
“[S]o for this body of work, there's five different stories to which I'm telling, one of which is the story about my mother's cancer. Normally… they're more negative experiences that I'm trying to understand in a more positive way. So my strokes are colors that are brighter in trying to… accept these experiences and… learn from them but also move forward,” Conti explained.
With her theatrical background, Conti sometimes feels as if she is performing herself. There is vulnerability in her portrayal of her life and she explores privacy versus vulnerability in her work. However, her time at McMaster gave her the confidence to tell her story through theatre, music and art.
The graduation show will open with a reception at the Cotton Factory from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on April 6. The graduating class looks forward to sharing their work with the Hamilton community.
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By: Andrew Mrozowski
From a very young age, Annette Paiement felt connected to the land she played on. It was this connection that would eventually lead her on a road to Hamilton, then on a solo drive to Northern Winnipeg and back home to share her experiences through the Where the Soul is Never Frozen exhibit.
“As a kid, I would leave the house first thing in the morning and wouldn’t come home until dusk… I loved to play in the forest, but always had a really strong connection to the water,” said Paiement.
Paiement grew up just west of Toronto and while nature was her calling, she pursued a degree in sculpture installation at the Ontario College of Arts and Design. On the side, she would take pictures and use them to influence whatever medium she was working with at the time.
She later moved to Hamilton in the early 2000s and became very involved with the arts and culture scene that the city had to offer, so much so that she hung up her camera as she started to pursue other opportunities.
“When I came to Hamilton, I really needed to reconnect to an environment that could allow me access to greenspace and water. It was for my peace of mind. I felt as if my soul yearned to be here,” said Paiement.
Paiement also found serenity hundreds of kilometers away in Northern Winnipeg, a place she has been travelling to for nearly twenty years.
“Every time I go, it is always about healing and through that time, I’ve been welcomed into the communities [in Sagkeeng, First Nation] and gratefully so. I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a number of different sacred ceremonies,” explained Paiement.
Following the passing of her mother and grandmother in 2016, Paiement went through a difficult time coming to terms with loss.
“At this particular time in my life, I helped to launch the Cotton Factory launch and didn’t take any time off. The Elders [in Sagkeeng, First Nation] invited me to [a climate change] summit, and I had just gotten my drivers license so I said I’d go. Without any intention of returning to Ontario I packed whatever I could fit into my Fiat and left,” explained Paiement.
Upon her arrival, she realized that the Elders cancelled the summit but invited her to stay with them.
While participating in various meetings and ceremonies with the Manitoba government and the Elders, Paiement would take time to drive around by herself in -50℃ weather. She would pick destinations and drove out to take pictures.
“There was just something about it that made me feel like I was suspended in this altered [reality]. The prairies are something so different. The expansion of the sky, the horizon and all of it flat and frozen? It’s something I can’t even express in words,” said Paiement.
It was only when the artist returned to Ontario that she decided to turn her photographs into an exhibit for all to experience. Where the Soul is Never Frozen is comprised of approximately ten photographs from Paiement’s journey.
“I see them more as a way to speak about a feeling or a land-based spiritual practice and an appreciation for nature,” explained Paiement.
Paiement utilized photography to capture, communicate and take viewers along with her on a healing journey through the frozen prairies. Each work of art has an energy that it gives off, easily transporting the viewer to Northern Winnipeg.
As Paiement’s art hangs on the Member’s Gallery walls of Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts, she hopes that it’s legacy has a lasting effect on Hamiltonians and encourages others to connect with the land around them.
“It is my hope that people will say ‘let’s try hiking this weekend’ and they will take out their cameras and fall in love with nature. Hopefully they will say ‘why don’t I do this all the time?’,” said Paiement.
Where the Soul is Never Frozen is on display at Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts at 173 James Street North until Feb. 2, 2019.
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When Hamilton designer Jennifer Kaye visited the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology National Historic Site, she was struck by the beauty and craftsmanship of the 19th century steam-powered water pumping engines. It was something that couldn’t quite be captured in a 2D image. That is why her images of the 1859 Waterworks are in 3D.
From Jan. 19 to Sept. 8, the Museum of Steam and Technology National Historic Site will host an exhibit of Kaye’s photography entitled Doing It Justice: The Steam Museum. The free exhibit will be housed in the Woodshed that forms part of the Victorian industrial building complex.
Kaye recently did a graphic design program at Mohawk College, during which she took a photography course. In that class, she was assigned to use an advanced photography technique and chose 3D photography. She felt the museum lent itself perfectly to the medium.
“It's interesting to stand in the woodshed space and experience the engine in three dimensions without actually being there and looking at them. It has sort of a retro feel to it actually because we are using the old school three dimensional glasses, with the red and blue panes and the red and blue offset images. So it feels a bit like all the old school movies or even three dimensional comics,” said museum curator Richard Barlas.
3D photography is created by mimicking the way each human eye perceives a slightly different view. For each photograph, Kaye had to take two shots from slightly different angles and bring them together. When she reached out to the museum for help with the assignment, they loved it so much that they asked her to expand it so it could be displayed at the museum.
On Jan. 19, the opening reception for Doing It Justice took place, coinciding with the birthday of James Watt. Watt was an 18th century Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer who made significant improvements to the steam engine and thus contributed to the Industrial Revolution. The exhibit opening honoured his contributions to the modern world with birthday cake.
Aside from showcasing the machinery, the exhibit will educate patrons on 3D photography and machine art. Kaye prepared an essay highlighting the history of the two forms and the museum staff have been given information on the topic in order to engage visitors. As well, movies from the 1920s and 1930s with machinery in them will be playing in the exhibit.
3D photography became popular around the same time as the steam museum was built, making the use of one to illustrate the other even more fitting. Kaye also wrote in her essay about the early 20th century history of machine art, tracing its usage as a metaphoric icon to the modern acknowledgement of machines as beautiful objects.
“[There’s] real beauty in that kind of machinery. You know it's big and it's almost like it was made to be looked at and admired, you know, beautiful materials and… a real pride in the craftsmanship that I find really inspiring… And the art that uses that uses that iconography, I just find it appealing,” Kaye said.
Kaye hopes that the appreciation for the museum will increase and the exhibit helps to bring new visitors to see the steam engines. Barlas hopes that the exhibition gives those who cannot see the steam engines due to the lack of accessibility a way to experience the historic machinery.
“[T]he industrial past of Hamilton is so tied to its present and maybe to its future… we'll have to see. So I think places like the steam museum… honor a past about Hamilton that sometimes we prefer not to spend too much time thinking about, you know dirty industry and all of that, but that's who we are here. So yeah, I find that inspiring,” Kaye said.
The main goal of the steam museum is to promote education about the industrial and scientific history of Hamilton. Kaye has found a way to take a symbol of that history, the steam engines, and do it justice through art.
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[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="82" gal_title="Queering Intimacy"]
Experiences of intimacy, in so many of my own cases, were often wrought with the anxiety of underperforming or oversharing. It was with some relief that I finally arrived at my own queerness in my late teens and felt my world grow bigger. Finally, I had arrived somewhere where I could set my own pace and my own definitions. My understanding of intimacy changed radically.
Queerness eliminated so many of the rules I had understood myself to exist within, and, within the state of unrest, queerness allowed for a vast range of acts to fall under the umbrella of intimacy. At its core, intimacy is to explore, and perhaps share, parts of oneself. That connection, to oneself or to another, and most especially in the context of queerness, allows for the attainment of some small slice of liberation.
In spite of the inherent risks, and against the odds, there is power to be claimed in these acts of queer intimacy. I found power in screaming at my best friend’s drag show debut. I found power in kissing my friend on the street in broad daylight. I found power in cooking breakfast for my first girlfriend. I have found unparalleled intimacy and safety in so many of my relationships with other queer people.
In thinking about this photo essay, I thought about twin beds and toothbrushes in pairs, about picking up the bill and carrying the grocery bags. I thought about inhibitions and shyness, and about bravery both quiet and loud. I considered all those ridiculous and beautiful moments that are made free under the banner of queerness.
Queer intimacy, like all intimacy, can exist as a haven in which to shelter oneself. Queer intimacy is a place for growth that is both euphoric and aching. It is the capacity to say, “Here is what my chaos looks like. Will you celebrate it?” It is the capacity to be heard. Queer first loves, whether romantic, platonic or somewhere in between, have an element of unique shared vulnerability that I have found indispensable to my own growth as a young queer person. In taking these photographs of a queer couple, I did my best to capture this particular flavour of softness.
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By: Alannah Pelini
The end of the semester brings the stress of final assignments, last-minute midterms and the looming dark cloud of exams. For those graduating this year, you are realizing that graduation is within arm’s reach and that you should probably book those grad photos. Some already had their photos done and have received them in the mail. Others may still be waiting for their session.
For those waiting, allow me to shed some light on what is to come after your session. Two weeks after having your pictures taken, you will receive prints with all your poses in the mail. These prints are covered in watermarks for copyright protection. You will also receive an access code for their online store where you can order your photos. There are a number of packages to choose from ranging in price from $63 to $419. You will soon notice that if you are looking for a few photos, each with a different pose, the website offers no reasonable options. We as student deserve better options for our post-secondary milestone.
Being a 21st-century student, you look for a CD or jump drive, some type of digital copy of your prints in order to print what you want for yourself. The site offers none of these options. To receive a CD with all your prints, you must buy one of four packages ranging in price from $279 to $419.
To save you some time, I already called the company and asked about the CD, only to be informed that the CD was offered by itself in previous years, but this year the company decided it would only be offered as a bonus. No comments were made on the reasoning behind this switch. They do not offer any digital download options.
After creating a bit of a fuss, the supervisor offered to sell me just the CD for $279 plus taxes and shipping. If that price sounds familiar, it is because that is the cheapest package price that includes the CD as a bonus. When I was on the phone I didn’t realize that was the same price as the package, but last time I checked CDs do not cost that much to make.
After four years at Mac, we have spent thousands of dollars on tuition, over-priced food, textbooks that sometimes are never even used, ridiculous parking fees and we still don’t know how much we will be charged to walk across the stage at graduation. Given the celebratory occasion, one would expect better options.
You may not care about the cost of grad photos right now, but wouldn’t you rather have this dealt with now rather than later, when you graduate?
A Facebook page entitled “Grad photos for the 21st century student” has been created in the hopes of learning what other schools are offering in comparison to Mac. It was also created to find others who want to see this change. In addition, some schools in Ontario already offer more advanced options, such as Humber College and University of Guelph-Humber who both offer USB options to their students.
Two major options are being discussed. We could petition the school to better support their students by contracting a company with options that students are looking for. Or, and this is more complicated, we could find somewhere else to take our grad photos.
Spotted at Mac, the anonymous Facebook page, receives countless posts of student photographers looking for people to sit for them. Graduating students brought their own USB and a small donation for the photographers’ time. Students with a developed portfolio who are capable of handling the job could be hired as part-time photographers as opposed to a third-party photography company.
Although these options may be difficult to implement, students should be able to purchase their graduation mementos on their own terms. Considering the high cost of getting the degree in the first place, students should at least save some money here.
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Once spread solely by word of mouth or reviews on Yelp, food culture is now built upon a foundation of hashtags and Instagram posts. Restaurant-goers discover new places through geotags on Instagram, making up their minds based on the way their friends post photos of their food. In the past, many paused before meals to be thankful for what is in front of them – today, we use that time to take pictures of these meals.
Food is perhaps one of the few things on earth that is universal. Since the beginning of time, the consumption of food has been social, and today’s trend of posting photos of our food on Instagram reflects this very human desire to share our meals with other people. To many, the practice may seem useless and silly: what’s the point of making a fool of yourself at a restaurant or taking any time at all to take a picture of food when you can just eat it?
Whether you partake in food photography or not, it’s important to recognize that this is an interest that has been integrated into our technologically-advanced and media-driven society. You may be someone with this hobby, you may be someone who despises it or you may fall in between as someone who does not participate but appreciates nice photos of delicious food (that’s me). Opinions aside, most of us would be compelled to double-tap an expertly crafted photo – food or otherwise – on the ‘gram.
Natural lighting
Good lighting makes a photo. People who over-do their food snaps are the ones who apply various filters to the original photo in attempt to salvage a dull, lifeless shot that was captured under bad lighting. When done correctly, natural light is the only filter you need. And remember – no flash, ever.
Find the angle
You can add a lot of interest to your photo solely by the angle from which you take it. Certain dishes would look striking when photographed from a birds-eye view, while others (like a detailed, tiered cake) may look best as a close up. Don’t hesitate to take a couple shots from various angles to see what works best.
Subtle edits
If nice, natural light is nowhere to be found, consider downloading editing softwares like VSCO cam and Afterlight. These apps allow you to mess with variables like exposure, saturation and enhancing or reducing shadows or highlights. Nobody wants to see a picture of your burger drenched in the Valencia filter on Instagram; customizing your photo with subtle edits will enhance it rather than make it tacky.
Bold colours
Play around with colours. The best food pictures are ones that feature an interesting contrast of different hues. Try pairing duller and brighter tones, or incorporate bright colours that pop out. Place orange wedges next to resplendent red pomegranate seeds. Throw some lime-green edamame beans over a bed of purple kale. It’s difficult to make a piece of brown, charcoaled steak look enticing.
Resist perfection
If you’re taking a slice from a cake and a few crumbs fall onto the tabletop, don’t clean it up! Some disorder and mess adds charm and can make the photo more lively, just like the berries scattered across the table in this photo. Meticulously arranged photos can end up looking unsettling, lifeless and even sterile.
Eat your food
The most important tip, and one that people often forget, is to not wait too long before eating. It may be enticing to position and re-position your plate over and over again in order to get “the perfect shot.” However, no shot is worth it if the dish in front of you ends up melting or getting cold! While food photography can be an interesting hobby, food should ultimately be a feast for your tastebuds.
Photo Credit: Desserts for Breakfast
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Katie Dhaliwal
The Silhouette
For all the fashion-forward students out there, there’s a new club in town. “Style at Mac”, is a website and student-run group that offers fashion lovers recognition on campus. Run by three McMaster students, Nancy Pham, Sherry Du, and Victor Cheng, SAM uses photography and fashion to share homegrown Hamilton styles with the student community. Du, a fourth-year Biology student, loves blogging, photography and making her own jewellery. Cheng, a third-year Multimedia and Communication Studies student, is an esteemed “iPhoneographer” and loves to design his own clothes in his spare time. The two sat down for an interview with LifeStyle to discuss their new initiatives and to give us the inside scoop on fall fashion trends.
First, it’s important to note that SAM isn’t just a fashion blog—according to Cheng and Du, it’s a venture that attempts to create an open forum for students interested in fashion to meet, discuss their passions and express themselves. Previously missing from campus, they felt that this club would try to fill that niche for fashion enthusiasts. This initial idea was what led to the creation of their new website and plans for an upcoming fashion show in March.
Their website displays some of these trends and focuses on students with outfits that SAM’s photographers have deemed eye-catching or original. They’re looking for “great patterns, a well put together outfit or even just a great choice of colour,” says Du. However, this isn’t to say that these outfits will be rated or dissected. Victor made it very clear that the aim of the website is to simply document and share new trends while creating a sense of pride in those that are photographed. Du added, “It’s important that we try to create an inclusive environment that showcases uniqueness on campus and the diversity of all students”.
Their plans for their first fashion show will also feature McMaster talent by showcasing the work of student designers as well as local, independent clothing boutiques to support our surrounding community.
Only one month into the semester and SAM has already picked out some fall trends emerging on campus. Cheng mentions vintage clothing and styles from the 80s and 90s have made a big come back, with combat boots being a major front-runner in must-haves for the season. And for those of us that struggle to find something to wear on days with early morning lectures, SAM has us covered, as it’s a question they often ask the stylish men and women they photograph. A good suggestion would be to take a few extra minutes to plan your outfit the day before, so that in the morning it’s quick and hassle free. Cheng also emphasized not to wear the same coloured shirt and pants unless it's all black. As for favourite accessories, Cheng can’t leave home without a watch to complete his outfit, and Du loves a silk or cotton scarf with a bold colour or pattern because “they’re an easy way to spruce up any outfit”.
You can check out SAM at www.styleatmac.tumblr.com. Their March fashion show is a few months away, but in the mean-time keep an eye out for their cameras and keep our campus stylish.
With a summer of tour guiding behind me, I’ve seen the other side of the tourist experience. And I’m not so sure I liked what I saw.
As months of work made the novelty of my workplace diminish a little, it became more and more evident to me how people experienced their visit.
I had been enthralled by my surroundings at the outset; I was working in Parliament, which was something a political nerd like me found thrilling. But I knew that I would return every day, while the majority of our visitors were at Parliament for a couple hours, perhaps only in Ottawa for a day.
I watched as thousands of people went through the building, day in, day out. And even if they weren’t inside, I saw them roaming around Parliament Hill and its surroundings. But what struck me about these hordes of tourists was how they chose to interact with their setting.
Sure, Parliament is a pretty recognizable building. I understand the instinct to pose in front for memory’s sake, for an entry in the family photo album. But I was surprised that people were inclined to do so while missing the real thing.
Visitors would snap hundreds of photos over the course of a visit. Not just one photo for each new spaces, but photos of every angle, every inch of the place. And yet, in doing so, they lost the opportunity to understand what it was they were seeing. Explanations were offered; guides were always on hand, taking people to all the sights. But the explanations were ignored in favour of composing their shots.
These tourists didn’t actually see what they came to see—they experienced it all through a lens.
I wondered what people were going to do with these photos. I’d imagine them getting home, bringing their memory card full of photos to show to their friends and family. They’d sit down, open the files, and then be at a loss for what it actually was they were looking at.
Maybe my imagination was a little ungenerous. Naturally, not everyone has the same interests, and things that I find fascinating may be boring to someone else. People don’t go on vacation for purely educational purposes. But in seeing how these tourists reacted to Canada’s most recognizable landmark, I had a sinking feeling that mine wasn’t the only experience with the photo-tourism phenomenon.
It’s something I can see upon logging into Facebook, too. The photo albums of friends’ trips around the world prove to me that I’m just as affected from the other side of things. It’s nice to see where my friends travel, and what they noticed while they were there. In seeing their photos, even without context, I can to some degree understand their experiences from a distance. And I’m sure for them it’s nice to be able to relive a little of their travels when they get home as well, be it immediately after or years down the road.
Although I get the gist, the whole thing seems, well, two-dimensional. Photos can’t tell you the stories of the places you went to; the little quirks and interesting details won’t show up on your screen.
I wish I could have taken away those tourists’ cameras this summer. Maybe it would have made them actually see what they were looking at.
I’ve been carrying this camera around for the last twelve hours. It’s brown, made of plastic (with a rubber inlay) and has a built-in, non-removable fisheye lens. It prints onto 35mm film. To be perfectly honest it looks and feels and like a toy. This is the charm of Lomography.
Put simply, Lomography is a company that specializes in creating quirky, compact, affordable and uniquely inspired analogue cameras. I’d like to emphasize “unique” because I’m fairly confident that there is no other way to acquire a film camera with four (or eight, or nine) lenses in a grid pattern, all capable of taking sequential action shots and leaving your friends asking which editing program you had to use to get those effects.
The multi-lens camera line, while arguably the most popular, doesn’t even scratch the surface in the grand scope (get it?) of Lomography’s products. Other notable mentions include pinhole cameras, panoramic cameras, and even a hand-cranked video camera to produce retro silent films. For the analogue photography aficionados (I’m sure you’re out there somewhere), there is a wide selection of nicer cameras with minimal but effective aperture and shutter-speed selection settings, as well as a line of varied films for different print styles.
The history of the Lomography company is almost as cool as the products they sell, so bear with me for a century. In 1914, LOMO was founded in Russia to produce cameras, lenses, and weapon sights during the First World War. They later underwent a few corporate name changes and began to focus on high-end lens development, but not before leaving behind the Lomo Kompakt Automat or LOMO LC-A.
Jump ahead to 1991, when a pair of Viennese students picks up the LOMO LC-A in an old-school camera shop and fall in love with the highly lit and unpredictable nature of the analogue gem. The boys start up a company to recreate the camera, and spend the next two decades rapidly expanding as their retro empire grows into a sprawling cultural phenomenon. Now, with a substantial online following and stores all over the world, they have succeeded in keeping film photography around and appealing (for the time being).
Lomography seems to be a hit or miss topic with most people I’ve spoken to over the last few weeks. The common responses to my condensed summary are “you can still buy film?” or “why wouldn’t you just get a digital camera?” The first question is actually not as laughable as it might seem. The last few years have been a whirlwind of sharper, more user-friendly, and more affordable digital cameras. 2012 was the year of dumbed down and highly accessible “vintage photo effect” apps, with Instagram eventually emerging as the crown jewel. In light of all this, it’s almost surprising that a market for analogue photography still exists. This brings us to the next question: why?
It’s the same reason you can still find a record player and vinyl records with relative ease: something about it was worth hanging on to. There is often an argument made for the quality of film prints, but it’s becoming impossible to compete with the digital camera, so what is it? I chalk it up to nostalgia and the surprising, unpredictable nature of film. It’s the sunspots and slightly excessive exposure that make memorable photos, and analogue photography preserves the element of surprise that digital photography has spent years eliminating. Nostalgia speaks for itself - unless of course you think your grandkids will appreciate the wistful magic of clicking through thousands of your ancient Facebook albums.
Is Lomography flawless? No. It doesn’t offer digital clarity and you have to buy film pretty often. These are the things that have turned a generation away from analogue photography, but they are also the endearing qualities of a unique art form that isn’t ready to be laid to rest just yet. Pick up one of their cheaper cameras in the Toronto store location or via the website if you feel like giving it a shot, and spread the word: newer is not always better.
Brody Weld
