Low-Res Lomography
Quick and dirty, slick and arty: Check out the latest photo trend.Dave Johnson
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Feature: Get Creative With Lomographs
The big news in digital photography always centers around using cameras with more megapixels, higher image quality, and more advanced features. Enthusiasts are encouraged to learn how to shoot everything like a pro.
That may be where most of the buzz is, but there's also a quieter movement out there that espouses using handy little low-tech cameras to take quick, impromptu shots that are full of candid vitality. The movement is called Lomography, a name that comes from the camera that popularized the style.
The Lomo became popular first behind the Iron Curtain as an inexpensive camera designed to appeal to the Soviet masses. Later on, the Lomo spread throughout Europe. Back in the early 90s, some Viennese college students bought Lomos and were impressed with the crudely artistic results they got with their cheap little cameras. The Lomo was a film camera, and along a couple of other similarly inexpensive models, it helped to spawn a refreshingly simple and spontaneous approach to photography.
Today, people can shoot in the sprit of Lomography with inexpensive pocket-sized point-and-shoot digital cameras. This approach to Lomography is hardly new, but it's just now catching on in the United States. I learned about the Lomo lifestyle only recently, and I was immediately taken not just by the snapshot-as-a-lifestyle spirit of Lomography, but also the unique look that many of the images have.
Digital Lomographers work toward emulating the film camera's results by using models with cheap optics and low resolutions. Some Lomographers use camera phones. The idea is always to be equipped with a tiny, cheap digital camera or camera phone so that you can grab snapshots of all the big and small events in your life. The resulting pictures are called Lomographs--or just Lomos, for short.
The Ten Rules of Lomography
Be sure to visit the Lomographic Society International site to read more about the history of Lomography. At that site, you can see more Lomos than you can shake a stick at, and learn how to get involved in this art form yourself. To give you some idea of how Lomos are viewed by those already in the lifestyle, here are the "10 Golden Rules" of Lomography as listed on the site:
Simulating the Lomo "Look"
Lomography isn't just an attitude--though it obviously has that in spades. Lomos have a distinct style, characterized by a dark, low-contrast look thanks to the low-budget optics and sub-par exposure controls. I've found it pretty easy to emulate the Lomo look with an image editor like Jasc Paint Shop Pro.
First, get an image that might make a good Lomo candidate. It should be a snapshot; something quick-and-dirty, off-the-cuff, and free of pretension. For this example, I chose an action picture. Save the file to your hard drive and load it into Paint Shop Pro. First make a duplicate layer by choosing Layers, Duplicate. You should see two layers in the Layer palette: Background and Copy of Background. (You can toggle the Layer palette on and off by selecting View, Palettes, Layers.)
Next, we want to apply some Gaussian Blur to the top layer to diffuse the color in the picture--this simulates the effect caused by the low-grade optics in the original Lomo cameras as well as in inexpensive digital cameras and camera phones. Make sure the top layer (Copy of Background) is selected, then choose Adjust, Blur, Gaussian Blur. You need to set a radius, which indicates how blurry this layer will become. Try about 10 and click OK. Then double-click the Copy of Background layer in the Layer palette and choose a Blend mode of Multiply. Click OK.
The effect is very cool. Even if you don't start carrying a camera around 24/7 and make Lomography a part of your life, you might want to use this technique occasionally to create an interesting effect in selected photographs.
Dave's Favorites: Faking Long Exposures With Image Stacker
The final frontier of digital photography: long exposures for night photography. There are any number of reasons why long exposures and digital cameras don't mix. First and foremost, most digital cameras are limited to a maximum of 8 seconds of total exposure time. More importantly, long exposures generate lots of digital noise that cloud your night photography with stray pixels of random color.
TawbaWare's $17 Image Stacker is a clever solution to this vexing problem. The program lets you combine a number of short exposures into a single, long-exposure photo.
I tried Image Stacker and immediately fell in love. You simply drag a number of photos into the Image Stacker queue, choose from among five blending modes, then click Start. That's it; there are no complex controls or confusing settings. A few moments later, you get a simulated long exposure that rivals the sort of thing film cameras excel at. The various blending modes help you minimize digital noise and fine-tune the exposure of your final picture. You can try a series of pictures in all five modes to see which you like the best.
You can use Image Stacker to photograph star trails in the night sky and light trails from moving cars, and to add an unearthly daylight glow to your night photos. If the thought of getting creative with your digital camera at night excites you, this is a must-have application.
Q&A: Extracting Photos From Microsoft Word
A well-meaning friend of a friend has sent me some interesting pictures in Word document format. Is it possible to convert these files to JPEG or some other format suitable for a digital photo print?
--Morris Taylor, Pasadena, California
I've got bad news, Morris: Yes, you can export images stored in Word, but you won't like the results. All you have to do is click on the picture in Word and choose Edit, Copy from the menu. You can then paste the image into any image editing program and save it in the format of your choice. But you'll find the picture has been irreparably damaged as a consequence of having lived in a Word document. Your best bet? Ask your well-meaning friend to resend the original image as an e-mail attachment.
Hot Pics
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: "Autumn Reflection," by Paul Fruehauf, Cassadaga, New York
Paul says he captured this photo in Delaware Park near Buffalo, New York, using a Nikon CoolPix 995. Paul says, "I like the contrast of multiple seasons all illustrated in a single image."
Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For our June winner, we chose "Beach Breakfast," taken by Albert Monaco, from Scituate, Massachusetts.
Congratulations to Albert and to everyone who won the Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!