I would think that most designers with an eye on the lo-fi will be familiar with the aesthetic of toy cameras. As an arty type with an interest in lo-fi technology and photography I have a couple of toy cameras myself, so when the opportunity came about to review Kevin Meredith’s book on toy cameras – Toy Cameras, Creative Photos: High-end Results from 40 Plastic Cameras (Amazon UK) I was keen to get my hands on it and see what other plastic fantastic cameras are out there.

So what is a toy camera? As Kevin Meredith states in his introduction, it might be a better to ask: “what is a serious camera?”

The answer to that question is simpler, a serious camera is one that has been designed to capture a scene with as much accuracy as possible. The resulting images, while technically perfect, can seem a bit lifeless to some people. Toy cameras are ideal for photographers who don’t want to capture a polished version of the world.

The books setup and approach is straightforward – 40 toy cameras and examples of photographs taken by those cameras. How the book is structured is also simple – Each camera gets a page with an image of, and a few paragraphs about, the camera in question and then several spreads of photography will follow, the photographs illustrating the cameras foibles and quirks. With many images the film type and other details such as the processing technique are given.

The text is informative and succinct. With each camera a little background or description is given, Meredith giving his opinion on the cameras practicality, drawbacks and quirks; for each camera information is given on lens type, aperture, shutter speed, film type, ISO and similar and variant models. The photography throughout the book is excellent – as well as the photography of the author, Meredith has also roped in a load of contributors all who have supplied quality photography.

I was initially surprised at the inclusion of digital cameras, but by Meredith’s own definition a toy camera can be digital and including them supports the inherent inclusiveness of toy cameras. The random ‘happy accidents’ of light leak and vignetting also add to this inclusiveness – no matter what your proficiency in photography the same random results will happen. This is were the divide happens – to embrace such lo-fi photography you have to accept and embrace these random quirks – control freaks should stick to their high-end SLR’s.

The book ends on brief but informative sections on film formats, processing, and toy camera basics: Film speed, shutter speed and aperture.

I don’t  have any real criticisms of this book, It is a simple proposition executed well. I would have preferred to have seen larger images of the cameras but that probably says more about me fetishizing cameras than anything else. I did find that the graphical elements of the book -  furniture and colour – is a little derivative. It looks like a Lomography product. Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, an Austrian company set up in the early nineties whose name is taken from the former Russian manufacturer LOMO PLC, and their camera the LOMO LC-A, which Lomographische AG distribute around Europe. Lomographische AG have very cleverly promoted and nurtured a large worldwide community whose interests are cheap plastic cameras, soviet imports and processing techniques such as cross processing and redscale. The design throughout Toy Cameras, Creative Photos… echo the Lomography branding used throughout their publications and marketing material. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, in fact from a marketing perspective it is probably the right approach as Lomography is such a recognisable entity and has such a large community. I guess I feel that there has been a missed opportunity for this book to have an identity of it’s own, and break the hegemony Lomographische AG have over lo-fi/toy camera culture. This is a minor gripe though and overall the important bits – the photography and text – are given plenty of space to breath.

For a newcomer to lo-fi photography and toy cameras this book will be a great introduction. To someone like me who has already got the lo-fi camera bug it is still a great buy. There are cameras featured in this book that I never knew existed, the action sampler cameras really stoked my imagination, I can see myself trawling ebay for an Oktomat sometime soon. The Ikimono looks cute too.

This book also works well as a reference book or a source of inspiration – there really is some great photography featured and anyone with an interest in photography, be it lo-fi, digital or film will appreciate the qualities of the images.

This review also appears on The Designer’s Review of Books.

op

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Dark Chamber

From the site:

Dark Chamber is a new exhibition of pinhole photography which opens at Dimbola Lodge on 1st April 2011. The exhibition brings together a selection of photographs by Billy Childish, Nhung Dang, Wolf Howard and Dave Wise.

Selecting pinholes made over the past decade Dark Chamber aims to reveal something of the daily lives, travels and interests of the respective photographers.

Find out more here.

op

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3. Holga Experiments

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The collection is housed in what used to be a recording studio and the location sits very well with the objects and images, small rooms linked by smaller corridors opening into a larger room, filled floor to ceiling with the most obsessive imagery I’ve ever seen. The collection is selected by artists, musicians and writers but don’t let that spoli it, you might like David Byrne. Each curator has written a small text explaining their choices. Some of these are very annoying, some are better. Nick Cave managed to get to the nub of it for me with the text ‘Louis Wain is my favourite painter ever’. Fair enough eh?

There are some truly startling paintings, illustrations and installations on view here, the product of a persons obsessions and compulsions. This is not art made for the consideration by others, this is true art, made because the artist has no other choice but to get it out of their head. Highlights for me were the Aleksander P Lobanov collection and the Henry Darger panels, a twisted Norman Rockwell of adolescence and fear.

Get up there and see it, don’t think it’s going to be on for much longer.

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..So all this brings me onto the photography of Nhung Dang. Nhung is a prolific photographer, but I am particularly inspired by her pinhole photography. There is something nostalgic and timeless to her photography, in both subject matter and appearance, almost like looking at an alternative past through the warm fug of memory.

Nhung makes her own cameras and her obvious skill with them has produced some amazing atmospheric imagery. There is something of the outsider (art-brut) in the idea of handmade implements, whether this is my romantic notion of the ideal of ‘craft’ or a celebration of the rejection of technology, who knows, but when I look at Nhung’s photos I want to make cameras out of biscuit tins and take photos of butchers…

I have chosen a couple of images for this post but please check out the following links to see more of Nhung’s work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhungsta/

Nhung’s ‘The Lost Promenade’ project – “Starting with the pieces around the edges…”

A short interview with Nhung Dang

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