Stop - it's lomo time | shutter love

For the past, couple of years, there’s been an uprising trend on toy photography, funky filters, vignetted borders, miniature polaroids, fish eye lenses… and the list goes on. You choose an effect, they’ve got it! Almost every facebook profile I’ve stumbled on has at least one image with an overlay of these effects. And why shouldn’t they? These fun, funky and unpredictable cameras seem to be at its peak as a trend. Teaming up with Urban Outfitters was definitely a good move to get the word around.

I’m not sure if it’s the raw borders, nostalgic sepia and cyan tones make these little accessories so popular, but whatever they’re doing it’s working. Let’s have a little history lesson, turns out the lomo camera was born in 1982, when General Igor Petrowitsch boldly introduced the tiny Japanese compact camera to Panfiloff, the Director of the LOMO Russian arms and Optical factory.

In the 1990’s two students in Vienna, Austria stumbled upon the Lomo Kompakt Automat and began taking photos from the hip down. Their little experiment created astonishing photos beyond your wild imagination. Since then lomo has opened up various shops around the world selling different levels of equipment and camera accessories for fun, passionate, carefree photographers.

If you look on the lomo website, there is a suggested 10 golden rules:

1) Take your camera everywhere you go

2) Use it any time- day and night

3) Lomography is not an interference 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) Don’t think

7) Be fast

8) You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film

9) Afterwards either

10) Don’t worry about any rules

Personally, I love lomo. Everything about this is fun! From the analogue surprises, disasters and miracles produced from painting with light, to holding that silly looking neon Diana F+ camera around town – it’s all fun and games. The beauty about it is the ability to be carefree with it. Capturing those accidental encounters within the frame is just the beginning. Receiving and seeing the results has a whole other effect. But, I think I’ve spoken enough here. I’ll just let some of the photos speak for themselves. (I'll be adding on some of my own once my film gets developed!)