The Lomographic Society International is a network for developing products and projects geared towards using snapshots to document an authentic and lively image of our planet and what is happening on it. Spontaneity, creativity, the everyday, communication and positive abilities are essential elements here. Although the most important rule is the one that says you should ignore rules. Everything people attempt to capture with this approach to life and through the lens of a Lomographic camera supports this digital community and feeds it.

There are currently an estimated 500,000 Lomographers world-wide, of whom 100,000 are registered and actively involved at www.lomography.com. There is a marked rising tendency (an average of 50 new registrations per day).

The typical Lomographer is between 22 and 47, has an above average income, owns about 3 cameras, has completed higher education and feels an irresistible urge to shoot and develop at least 20 rolls of film per month. All of the community features at www.lomography.com, the lifetime membership as well as the unlimited upload and storage space for images, are free and not conditional upon the purchase of a Lomo camera.


Links: www.lomography.com

At the beginning of the 1990s a couple of students discovered a mysterious little Russian camera, the Lomo Kompact Automat, and created a new artistic experimental style of photography with their unusual approach to taking snapshots. They began shooting as many photographs (“Lomographs”) in the most impossible of situations and from the most unfamiliar positions possible and having large numbers of copies printed. The result: a flood of authentic, colorful, crazy, off-the-wall, unfamiliar, brilliant snapshots that are combined on photo-montages to create a sea of thousands of Lomographs. The communication of this artistic concept of photography spread fast via the underground scene in Vienna to become an international socio-cultural movement with an international network of exhibitions and interactive projects in Moscow, New York, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Havana, Madrid, Cairo or Tokyo, where up to 100,000 Lomographs by participants from all over the world are on show at one time. Building on this, the Lomographic Society has developed additional tools for their creative lifestyle: cameras for unusual snapshots (e.g. 4-lens Colorsplash cameras) and photographic publications, exhibition concepts and accessories. A large range of cultural activities (exhibitions, parties, shows, field-trips, publications, art projects on an international and on a local scale, and cooperations in the fields of film, music and new media as well as the regular events and competitions held all over the world every year) organized by the Lomographic Society International and their 70 so-called “Lomographic Embassies” on every continent have involved over half a million members. In 1998 the Lomographers eventually discovered the Internet as an ideal arena for the unabashed glorification and spread of their shared passion. Freed from geographic and political barriers, transport and logistics problems, the analog LomoWalls of Lomographs from all over the world could be almost instantly placed online, sent around the planet, archived, compared, discussed and presented to a continually growing audience 24 hours a day.