I am drawn to LOMOgraphy by its saturated colors and philosophy of spontaneity, but really my qualifying it as good or as art is not going to be based on how it was taken, but rather the content. Perhaps its saturation and abstraction leads instantaneously to an aesthetically pleasing image when we disregard subject, and this easily achieved prettiness is why we want to disqualify it as true art. But the fact is that anyone can take a photograph today, from disposable, to SLRs to digital cameras, everyone can have access if they are willing to pay the price. So I don’t think it is a crime if LOMOgraphy has created a following aided by hype and accompanied by increasingly expensive equipment. It is a choice of the person taking the pictures how they want to take a photograph, and it is our choice as an audience whether or not we will accept them. Rejecting LOMOgraphy as the easy way out and a no-brainer I find snobbish. A bad LOMOgraph is going to be just as bad as a bad photograph from any other camera. A good LOMOgraph – someone had to decide what and how they were going to take that photo, and if they just got lucky, doesn’t happen to all of us once in a while? The point is, they went somewhere with that camera with the intention of capturing the world, just like any other photographer.
As to its consumer-friendliness, I think it is inspiring how something simple can bring many people together; a show like Trafalgar Square is beautiful because of its large scale in which many small parts come together. No matter how “good” each one is on its own, they become splendid when brought together as a group. If you think LOMOgraphy is being egocentric in a quest to impress with spontaneity, just ignore it. But I think people’s eagerness to share their lives with others is not born out of this technique; it merely provides an interesting and alternative route. In this digital and Internet age, we increasingly all want to share images of our lives, how we capture those images doesn’t seem all that important.
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