Best camera and lens combination ever to be made

There is only one camera lens combination in this world that will set you free. At least according to what I have read lately.

Do not believe any thing that those big camera manufacturers tell you. Canon, Nikon, Mamyia and Hasselblad are all junk manufactured to to make you a slave not photographer. And of course forget about this Leica thing. It will not give you any thing of a worth.

This is the feeling that I got after listening to art school teachers, heads of design faculties and graphic designers, through out the last couple of years and how they praised the Holga and Lomo cameras so much that we now have some thing in this world called lomography.
I call it the holgaga and promography. Why? because it is nothing but a an yet an other thing hyped up by people that want to understand photography and what photography is about but are to lazy to dive in there.

The strange thing about this is at the same time, those teachers and designers, when working at their ad agencies, crave from photographers, pin sharp, high quality, white people in white clothing and bright surroundings photo. No? Just have a look at Getty and other picture agencies and see what is cooking over there. What have been the most popular images there. What majority of the images look like. You will be surprised, I promise.

What really makes photography interesting is its complexity. There is so much you can do and there are basically no rules. Hundreds of different roads to be taken. There never have been any rules. All those wiki and photo teaching sites to day talking about all the rules of photography. Rule of third. Rule of lines and rule of this and that, all strive to make the young enthusiastic s to day more stupid and less creative. On top of that we have all those software that want to turn your photography into art and make every body and their grandma more stupid.
Having said that of course you have to keep some things in mind when making a picture. We could call them rules, but those are no rules those are guides. Meant to be broken. And have been at all times.

So why am I dissing Lomo cameras and Lomography. You only have to look at a website like Rules of Lomography to understand why. Many users of Lomography put an emphasis on one type of camera. It sends out the message that only with this type of camera can you do any thing like that. This is the only camera that will set you and your mind free. Only with this camera can you make art. Common give me a break.

We used to recycle disposable cameras when I was in school. We dug out all kinds of old cameras from our for fathers closets. I had my grandmothers camera out and experimented with it. My friend Martin made more beautiful rock photos with a disposable camera then many will ever do with a big brand name. I will say it now and over and over again. There is nothing new in photography. There are only new photographs. What sets you free is your mind and how you put in to use the camera you have in hand.

All the 10 rules at rule of Lomography have always been out there. there is not a single new thing to it. Not a single new way of thinking. Its all bin there for ever. Ever since cameras became fairly mobile thing

Lomography is certainly not a new concept but it has, as many other things I will discuss in future blogs, been hyped up by the internet savvy geeks that wanted to get some pictures into their design but did not understand the medium. They therefore "INVENTED" this new medium Lomography and what ever came out of the box was considered a good photograph. Even great photograph, greater than any thing ever made before. Such a thinking is dangerous to any medium. The medium has nothing to do with technology even though its soul survival is based on it.

We might use new equipment that in some cases make our life a little bit more easy but the fact is that the fundamentals of photography have not changes a bit for over 100 years. We still use a box to capture an image made by reflecting light. The technology used to capture those images have changed but the fundamental of photography not. I refuse to equal photography with technology. Its like equaling painting with the type of brush used.

My point is that you would never walk up to a painter and ask him what brand of brush he used and what brand of colors. Now would you. Or would you walk up to a dancer after a performance and start talking to him about those shoes he was wearing. What brand they are. Would you ask a pianist what type of strings there are in that black box of his that he hammered so fantastically on. Oh no. You would probably be considered a nutcase and locked up if you did.

You would on the other hand talk about the effect the performance had on you. What it gave you. Why you liked it. Why you hated it. Maybe to some degree his technique of playing. But then in connection to the effect on the pianissimo or forte.

We need to get a way from the techno gismo hype. But we do not do that by pointing every body to another camera type. We do it by looking at the photos and investigate why they make our heart tick.

Stay tuned
Stay happy
Stay creative

This here tells the story

10 Rules of Lomography.

1. Take your camera every where.
2. Use it any time - day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interface in your life but part of it.
4. Try the shot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Dont think.
7. Be fast.
8. You dont have to know before hand what you captured on film.
9. Afterward either.
10 Dont worry about any rules.