The Czech Republic on a pair of LOMO LC-As

By Harry Kannemayer

I decided to take a couple of hardy LOMO LC-As to the Czech Republic, including a trip to Prague, the home of their rediscovery by the now oft-fabled Austrian students’ and the inception of the Lomographic Society and Lomography as a movement.

I took two examples, a Zenith-brandedLC-A imported into the UK by Technical & Optical Equipment, and an Eastern Bloc Cyrillic-titled model, with Soviet export mark emblazoned next to the rear viewfinder. This is in part by my own crude design: I’m English, my partner is Czech. It felt right to have a camera copy from our respective markets. Anything to justify buying another camera, I suppose.

I carried the LC-As everywhere. Pausing only for a brief moment to compose, I shot freely all the time, capturing whatever I found interesting. From day-to-night, the picturesque to the mundane. The Minitar-1 lenses proved fantastic. The compactness of the cameras meant they were always at hand. The auto-exposure and simple zone focus meant they were always ready. Compact-Automat in name, C-A in nature. 

Prague Nocturne

My favourite shots of Prague happened at night, whilst on beer-fuelled constitutionals to-and-from hospody (read: pubs) to our hotel. Prague runs a varied fleet of trams. The older style trams prove photogenic with their red-stripe-over-cream coachwork. Paired with a roll Harman Phoenix II and longer exposure times handheld, the results surprised me. In a good way. Halation around lampposts and rich colours, the Minitar’s punchy contrast… this is a combination I’ll use again. 

Castles: Königstein Fortress and the Osek Castle ruin

Central Europe in general and the Bohemian region in particular are covered in castles. I visited two examples (three if you count oogling Prague Castle from the bank of the Vltava) which the LC-As took in their stride beautifully. The first, Osek Castle ruin, situated in a valley just north of the town of Osek. A long drive followed by a long walk up proved worth it. The castle was built around 1250, and was supposedly never conquered. Not dissimilar to the origins of the next castle…

Königstein Fortress: just over the border into Germany’s region of Saxony, I also visited the massive former state castle and prison, situated at the top of the Königstein rock, within Saxony’s Ore Mountains. To alpine readers, they might not seem like mountains. But, to your author’s origins in the north Hampshire downlands, they’re massive. Go figure. The fortress itself was used as a prison for much of its life, but was also supposedly never conquered. Bohemian engineering at its finest. 

Happy accidents

Akin to Lomography’s 10 principles of film photography, the trip wasn’t without a minor film accident. Sat in a women’s hair salon whilst waiting for my girlfriend’s mum to cut her hair, I loaded the Cyrillic example without fault. Deciding to also load the Zenith, I popped open the back, forgetting I had an unfinished roll of Harman Phoenix 200 loaded. I lost about 10 frames as a result, but salvaged some light-leaked images. My particular favourite is a shot I took of my girlfriend’s grandmother’s kitchen. I took the photo because I liked the green wallpaper, green leaves of the plant, and the little heart motif on the window. Well, now it’s immortalised in green light leak.

I was a fan of the LC-A before this trip. Ten rolls of film later, I’m hooked!