Many people overlook LOMO cameras for black-and-white photography.
The received wisdom is that LOMO cameras should be used with colour film – especially film with saturated tones or odd colour palettes.
So many LOMOgraphers load up their LOMO LC-As and LC-Wides with slide film to cross process, bright and brilliant 100-ISO print film or expired rolls long past their best-by date.
You can’t fault the logic. The Minitar lenses suit that psychedelic surrealism. But they can bring atmosphere and mood out of black and white film, too.
This image was taken the same day I shot the Big Ben image seen here. This time I loaded the LC-Wide with Fomapan 400, a cheap but versatile film from the Czech Republic.
This bridge will be familiar to anyone who has walked from St Paul’s Cathedral to the Tate Modern art gallery on the south bank of he Thames. Once nicknamed the ‘wobbly bridge’ due to it instability in heavy winds, it’s become another landmark along the river.
This shot again shows the dramatic focal length of the LC-Wide, and the deep contrast that it can bring out of black-and-white films. Strong diagonals always work well in a photograph but they can be even more powerful with lenses as wide as this.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
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