I am not a film "purist" or a digital slave, I do what ever I need to my analog pictures to obtain the artistic statement I want. After all, once a negative or photo is scanned, it has then become digital information.
I process and scan my film myself. My processing and scanning introduces results that sometimes are not so desirable or interesting. I look at each scanned negative in Lightroom and make artistic judgements that I correct digitally in post if necessary. This is no more different than making decisions in printing in a darkroom: cropping, burning and dodging, airbrushing scratches and other post processing is common practice.
There is no "purity" in sending a roll of color film to a lab and just accepting their results.
I experiment with any camera I can get my hands on (especially for free!), they all seem to produce a unique result.
I've shot and processed everything from sub-miniature 16mm to 4x5 large format (including APS). If it's a roll of film, it can be developed, but maybe not always in color.
I still can't get my tintypes to work.
Be a poet, not a reporter. Any good camera can make a good reproduction, but it takes a piece of junk to make a Lomo. Make the ordinary look extraordinary!
Each picture should be like a small poem. Poems should have titles.
The happy accident is a warm reminder that we are not in control of the universe.
The vagaries of film remind us that life isn't about having things go our way, it's about how we handle it when it doesn't.
Shoot with abandon but edit like a miser!
THE LOMOGRAPHER'S PRAYER:
GOD, Grant Me:
The Spontaneity to photograph what catches my eye.
The Serenity to slow down and compose and adjust my camera settings.
The Wisdom to know when to do which.
I DON'T TAKE PICTURES OF CATS (I like cats but I don't photograph them)
"The value of a picture is not proportionate to the trouble and expense it costs to obtain it, but to the poetry it contains." P H Emerson, photographer
"the series...has no grand order, no grand objective. Series grow as you work on them and what shapes or meaning they have come out of the pictures that work." Eric Lindbloom, photographer and early adopter of the Diana camera.
"There is no truth in photography, there are only photographs in photography." - Gerhard Richter
" I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." - Vincent Van Gogh
"Life is like photography, you need the negatives to develop." - a lomographer.
"Our Heads are Round So That Our Thoughts Can Change Direction." - Francis Picabia
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein
“I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning,” Andy Warhol
"I'm going to ram that camera up your ass." - various people in multiple locations. You should be told this a few times a year or you aren't trying hard enough.
