Photography and My Word of the Year

Further pondering of my word of the year was done over this last weekend. I was in Cape Cod and a goal was to take photos. I have never been in Cape Cod in February before. I had hoped to take lots of photos. Well it was freezing out with high winds and I forgot my gloves. The first day I got all the way down a long stairway to shoot, was freezing, and the batteries died. I changed them and those died. I am not kidding.

Over a year ago I had read in the zine Art & Life #1, an article by Tracy Moore about lomography. As soon as I read it, I realized it was right up my alley. These are so called toy cameras that take funky and unpredictable photos. A downside is they are print film cameras, so playing around will cost you in film and developing expenses. Last week I re-read that article and was dying to buy one. Since my husband has a new job the budget has opened up so I don't feel so restricted. Yet the cheapest one they sell is $60 and some are $150.

Topic change, kind of--
I have a big project to do here. I have old photos that my grandmother (paternal) took, to organize. I also have tons of her undeveloped film here. I researched that and found that it will cost me $42.50 to develop that old style film and to help tweak it if necessary to try to get decent "normal" shots out of it.

As it is some of the old film I had developed in the 1990s and the photos came out purple. And guess what, on the lomography site they are SELLING EXPIRED FILM at not cheap prices that will result in purple photos. Like people want their photos to look like that. And here I am wishing our old family photos were not purple.

I am dying for a Holga and the more I look at the Lomo site the more I want all of them, or a bunch at least. Who can decide between a regular photo, a panoramic, a 180 degree fisheye lens, so on and so forth. I want them all.

Some of the cameras take 120 film and I see a package of 20 rolls is going for $45, when bought along with the Diana Edelweiss camera. I then checked the development and that will have to be done by mail/Internet for $9 for each roll. So it is not just the camera cost but the film and development too.

Also I see for example on the Lomo site they are selling a Holga 120 for $70 but on froogle.com I found vendors selling it for as low as $37. So is the Lomo site a rip off or what?

You know what I am thinking. If I can get these at a discount how many can I then buy?

I just checked my local Craig's list and am not finding any. Well it was worth a shot.

Oh and I remembered that in about 1990 I bought a toy camera for $19.99 that takes 4 photos in a grid format called the ActionSampler. It is plastic and totally junky. It takes no batteries and uses 35 mm film. I will have to pull that out and check it out again. It looks just like the one on the Lomo site which they sell today for $30.

Then I was looking at the Lomo site and realized that many of the photos I've been taking with funky settings on my digital camera are doing these same things. I have been playing with long exposure times, shutting the flash off and shooting in existing light, moving the camera around in the dark, so on and so forth. So why do I need Lomo cameras to do this with?

I am thinking of the word content and how I should be happy with what I have. And not get into the Lomo craze.

Lastly, I do want a SLR digital camera. Perhaps for my birthday I could have that.

Again the word content--be happy with what I have and use what I have is on my mind....