the Outpost | PILAR NEREIDA

31 Jan 2013

Life with Indica, Karma & Orka.. .

It was late 2006 when I found out about Lomography through the people I met in my random trips everywhere, and what drew me to it was the diverse range of cameras it offered – from the Supersampler, Fisheye, LC-A, Holga, Diana, Action Sampler etc. The different outcome of it’s photos was just so interesting and fun that it only took a millisecond for me to decide to get one. At first I really wanted to get an Action Sampler or a Frogeye only because I felt that it suited my ‘active’ lifestyle back then, with the occasional trips to the mountains, beaches and all. But it was only in 2008 that I got to buy my first lomo camera, a Holga 120CFN which I named Indica II (after Indica I, my now defunct Canon EOS 350D back in college), what I liked about the Holga was that it had a lot of options, from multiple exposures to the splash of colors you want in every picture – it was such a f***ing experiment! The only problem I had with my Holga was that it uses a 120mm film which was not available everywhere and was quite more expensive than the usual films in camera shops, so you either had to know a local ‘film pusher’ or order it online. But the complication doesn’t stop there because camera shops within my city didn’t process such film format, so you had to ship it to Manila and wait for it to be delivered into your home (and you could just imagine my excitement while waiting for my first batch of films to be delivered!).

self-portrait (first attempt with Holga 120CFN)

Einstein, Kidlat’s pit bull (Holga 120CFN)

the now defunct Junkshop Collective Store (Fisheye1)

art at the Junkshop Collective (Fisheye1)

Intramuros, Manila (Fisheye1)

graffiti at Intramuros (Fisheye1)

Ming Tombs, China (Fisheye1)

mi bellas Bohol trip (Holga 120CFN)

But my love for lomography didn’t stop with the Holga 120CFN, fastforward a few years later in 2011 my partner-in-crime Kidlat surprised me with a Diana F+ and a Fisheye2. Finally, I had my own Fisheye and didn’t have to borrow my friend Le’s Fisheye1, which I took with me to several trips. And then there was the Diana F+ which also offered a lot of options for shooting, and these new babies I named Karma (Diana F+) and Orka (Fisheye2). Aside from the sporadic shoots here and there, it was also great meeting new people who share the same interest in Lomography when my friend Kate asked me to join Analog Cebu (a group of Lomo enthusiasts in the city who are a lot more dedicated and 100x more talented than yourstruly). Although I am not very much active in the group, I still learn a lot from them and get inspired to shoot more everytime I see their posts and pictures. With the many lomo cameras still available out there, I don’t think that I’d stop at 3 cameras though – still thinking hard and saving up for the next lomo purchase. I’m definitely not a pro at taking pictures with these babies and don’t plan to take it to such a serious level, I just merely want to have fun with it – like how it’s designed to be.