The Spirit Of Lomography

Sharpness: Upon close examination of any of these Morning Walk photos. it is easy to see that these images are in focus, but not particularly sharp. I accept this, simply because it brings me closer to the limitations of my original carry camera, an Olympus 35SP. Sadly, it never lived up to the hype about the sharpness of its lens. And since the negatives were being enlarged using an ancient Solar 4X5 enlarger and a pre-war Schneider enlarging lens, my soft negatives were softened further. It wasn't until I upgraded to a Pentax Spotmatic camera, an Omega X22 enlarger, and a 50mm F 2.8 Nikkor enlarging lens that I started to see a major improvement in sharpness. Until that point, I was in my happy place, finding solace in my Father's advice: If I couldn't make them (my prints) sharp, make them small. In those days, 5" x 7" was considered my standard sized print. Getting a sharp 8" x 10" print from a 35mm negative was a challenge until I upgraded to a 2 1/4" Mamaya twin lens reflex whenever print quality was important.

Going Digital: My standards for satisfactory sharpness have lowered considerably since going full digital for input (creating my images) and output (posts on my blog). When viewed on a laptop, my resolution floor of 300 dots per inch and standardized crop of 8"x12" is overly dot-dense. When such an image is uploaded to my blog, it is reduced to less than 1/5 of its original pixels. There are bound to be compromises throughout the journey to a digitally published product, and if I adopt the attitude that all digital images are by their nature ephemeral, the only lasting impression will be the qualities that the photographer chooses to elicit in the viewer, which for me distills down to the joys of color.

Lomographer At Heart: The Pandemic drastically reduced the number of photographic assignments, and with it, the critical need for super sharp images. Since the start, I began making photographs during my morning walks using inexpensive, manual focus lenses in an effort to both distract me from the physical lockdown and to see what all the fuss was about Fuji's Focus Peaking feature. It also brought me closer to my analog roots, resorting to a more careful approach to composition and critical focus. These photos were taken with my 10mm F 4.0 Loawa, a lens that had received some good press. The above photo is shown with a cropped portion, demonstrating that the lens is capable of satisfactory images when viewed online.

My Sister's Influence: My sister has always been a traveler, and I suspect the reason for her becoming a teacher was her summers would be free to explore the world. Before her camera of choice was a Nikormat Ftn with a 43-86mm zoom lens, she carried a Konica C35, a compact camera whose primary claim to fame was its compact size. She used the  C35 to make the photo that has always been my favorite. Somewhere in the Mediteranian, she photographed an inverted yellow rowboat on a background consisting of early morning skies and blue, still waters. It was underexposed, making the yellow boats almost too saturated to believe. I can still visualize the photo, even though the original transparency has been lost to the ages. Without realizing it at the time, this simple snapshot was my first lesson in complimentary colors.

In some ways, these photos, taken with my collection of inexpensive manually focused lenses, are an homage to her memorable image where sharpness took a back seat to the simple joy of color.