sllɐqǝʎǝʎzznɟ

Struggled a while to complete this short entry for the IMPRINTS series @ Yesterday.sg which was published yesterday. I guess I should not agree to do such things in future. Hahaha! Trying to find a topic to write is tough enough and having a deadline to do it … is worse! This is the 1st entry of two that I am supposed to publish. Anyway … here it is … more of a simple intro about why I love this hobby …

“What’s so fun about these cameras?”

“Film? Huh? Do people still shoot film?”

“What? Plastic camera? Film camera?”

These are only a few of the questions I got (all these years) from friends who saw me with cameras like the Diana, Holga or some other analogue camera. Some just went ‘Oh cute! What’s that? A Fisheye 2? Ermm … film?’. Often these questions will lead to them asking me why I am so into these stuffs and not the digital ones. I’ll usually start by telling them that I do shoot digital (I ain’t no die hard!) and these toy/plastic/analogue cameras offer some ‘magic’ that the digital ones don’t. Okay … before you (if you are a die hard digital fan) throw rotten eggs at me … let me confess that despite being an IT guy … I hate spending time in front of the computer (which I already spent most of my life at) doing post processing etc.

Since I agreed to contribute an entry or two for the Imprints series in Yesterday.SG (although I ain’t good at writing (or even explaining)) … I’ll try to finish this entry and hope at least you understand a little of what I’m saying. Prior to picking up my 1st Lomo camera, I had been shooting digital and during my 30 over years on earth … I think I only shot less than 3 rolls of film when I was *cough* young … and that was some film compact camera that I had for holiday snapshots.

So why these cameras? Hmm … let’s see …

The first thing that got me interested in such cameras/photography was the fun of double/multi exposures. The randomness and (usually) unexpected results are a joy to look at once you get the rolls back from the lab. It is all about the thrill and excitement of seeing what turns out after the end of the roll and getting it (the film) developed and scanned.

After dumping my Frogeye camera (my first Lomo cam that almost made me give up), I picked up an old Diana (from the 60s) from a friend and took it on a trip to Shanghai without even knowing how to load a roll of 120 film. I came back without even knowing if any of the photos will turn out fine but when I saw the results … it was one of the best days of my life! This one (above) is one of the photos from the roll and (don’t laugh!) I converted it to some sepia-like tone in Photoshop. Yeah … I was that blur … because I didn’t know black & white photos are produced by different film. Do some reading before jumping into this … and don’t end up like me. Hahaha!

There are many ways to experiment with multi exposures and there is no right or wrong way to do it! Let your imagination go wild!

If doing double/multi exposures by yourself gets boring … you can try shooting the first exposure by yourself and then send the roll(s) to a friend to settle the 2nd exposure. These double exposure collaborations are always big fun especially when you can even get some friends in another country to do it with you. You will then have scenes from different places all ‘mixed’ into one.

The colors, the fun!

Next comes the fun of ‘playing’ with different kind of film available. Feeding your cameras with different film makes the whole process even more exciting. Try cross processing (with slide film) and even redscale … or throw in a roll of black & white film sometimes. Even a roll of film will give you some random colors sometimes under different lighting! Different type of film will produce different results when cross processed too. Fun? You bet!

Cross processing adds much punch to the colors!

The blur!!!

Most of these toy/Lomo/plastic cameras produces some very cool dreamy blurred photos. That’s what make me love them more than anything else in the world. Yeah … that’s what made me call my blog (and URL) … fuzzyeyeballs. 😛 If you ever wanna pick up a Holga … go pick up a plastic lens version. I’ve tried both the glass and plastic lens version and somehow find the glass lens ones are a little ‘too sharp’ for my liking. Just my personal opinion. The original Holga had had plastic lenses … so why bother going for the glass ones? 😛

What else?

So apart from the Lomo cameras and the Holgas … what other cameras are there to ‘play’ with? There are tons! Tons of them out there. Do a Google on the words ‘toy cameras’ and you’ll find a long list of cameras that might make your wallet hate you for a long time. 😀 You can even try making your own pinhole cameras and such. Of course it will take a bit of experimenting and fine tuning but in the end … nothing beats the joy of seeing the results of your own creation.

An instant pinhole camera I made from a wooden box & a Polaroid back.

Instant cameras are super fun analogue cameras too!

There are many other fun formats like panoramic and now … even 360 degrees pano with the Spinner 360!

One of the all time favourite … square format photos!

Ermm … so?

That’s about all. All the reasons why I’m loving this hobby of mine. Well … the last reason is because all these cameras are way cute and pretty! I was once fascinated by big black shiny cameras (aka DSLRs and such) but things changed the moment I touched my first Diana camera. 😀

“But … but … we can always Photoshop the effects!”

But … but … oh nevermind.

“Oh ok. So I’m convinced. Where do I start?”

That’s a pretty common question I got from people. Like digital photography, there isn’t any right answer to that. I usually tell people who ask me that question to look at the different photos taken by different cameras … then decide for themselves. Sometimes I’ll tell them to go for the Lomo LC-A/LC-A+ (or perhaps similar cams like the Cosina CX2) if the have the budget and are seriously thinking of picking up this hobby. Why? That’s because those cameras has built-in metering and thus they should be able to get pretty good results … even on their first roll. That will definitely be a good motivation for them to keep going. I’ve heard of a couple of cases … where people give up trying altogether after their first couple of rolls ended up in the bin because they somehow screwed up gauging exposures on cameras that doesn’t have metering on them. Can’t blame them. I was on the verge of giving up in the begining too … all thanks to the simplicity of moden cameras making everything so simple.

Where to find these cameras?

I was hesitiating about putting up this part of the entry because some might think I’m paid by the shops to do this. Hahaha! Anyway … the first place that most people will go for is of course Lomography’s online store and also eBay. Of course buying from eBay need a bit of extra homework to find out if the price is reasonable. Over here (in Singapore), we are lucky that some people are already bringing in more of these toy/Lomo/plastic cameras in … and not too long ago … we even have a shop dedicated to selling such cameras & film. The shop, ThirtySix … is located at Sunshine Plaza was set up as a result a great reponse to their online store 8StoreyTree. Do check it out and with the help from the nice people there … I’m sure most won’t be able to leave the place without buying a ‘toy’ or two. 😀