Yesterday evening I having a look at the new style profiles that facebook have recently introduced. I noted that 5 of the musicians I 'like' have their photo displayed in my profile 'info' section. It is possible to choose which 5 are selected so I spent a few minutes swapping them around and ended up with Tori Amos, Strange Devotion, De Brassers, Cocteau Twins and Joanna Newsom.
Devoid of much else to do I clicked on the Tori Amos picture and saw mention of some free live MP3's that could be downloaded by clicking on a link. I clicked away and found myself on a page offering a special limited edition Tori Amos box set
This got me quite excited as it contained a CD signed by Tori herself, but as it was limited to only 2,000 copies I expected it to be sold out. But it had actually only just been made available and seemed not to have sold out yet, so I ordered one without really looking too much at what else was included. As far as I was concerned it had a live CD, was signed by Tori and also included a photo, which I could frame and put in my lounge. That was good enough for me. The fact that it also included a camera was neither here nor there - especially as it looked to be made of plastic.
That could have been then end of it, but the next day I kept thinking about this cheap plastic camera and wondering why it was included. I looked at the advert again and saw it was called a Diana camera. Could this be something to do with Lady Di?
I was curious now, so I looked it up and saw that a Diana was a very cheap camera produced in the 1960s that a number of professional photographers used to occasionally use as it had quite a few quirks that could produce some very good results. One such quirk was the fact that the cameras are often not completely light proof and the light leaking in can have some interesting effects. That reminded me of some of the photos I used to take with my old analogue SLR where I used to quickly open the back of my camera, after taking a photo, to let a bit of light leak onto the picture.
This is one of my examples from around 1980.
I read a bit of the history of the Diana camera, which I now realised had nothing to do with Lady Di, and saw the one included in the Tori Amos package was actually a Diana F+ and on further inspection I found these cameras have all sorts of features that enable you to get very creative with them - such as interchangeable lenses (made of plastic!), double exposure and the ability to keep the shutter open as long as you like.
By now I was more than a little excited and further searching led me to a special group for these cameras on Flickr.
In fact I had now discovered there was a whole world of lo-fi photography out there and the name Lomography seemed to crop up quite a bit. As well as being a trademark it also seemed to refer to a form of casual snapshot photography characterised by such things as over-saturated colours, off-kilter exposure, blurring and "happy accidents".
I looked through some of the photos on the Flickr group and was immediately reminded of one of my favourite photos of all time: the cover form the Hagnesta Hill album by Swedish band, Kent.
I tried to find out if this photo was taken with such a camera, but I could find no mention of it, and, on reflection, I imagine it is probably taken with a far more advanced camera. But the main thing is I am now inspired to get out there with my new lo-fi analogue camera and try and recreate the feel of this photo.
I am now just as excited about the arrival of my camera as I am of the signed Tori Amos Cd and photo (which was taken with one of these cameras).
Any female subjects wishing to get involved in my new project, let me know.
