lomo bashing

there is a thread going on now in the popular Clubsnap forum (see ClubSNAP - LOMOGraphy is.....) in which some pro- "serious photography" folks are slamming Lomography as a cheap, “over-hyped, non-artform”.. wow, pretty scary how vehement some of them are.. calling it everything from “a disease” to “con job” and even “vulgar”..

to me, it’s just something fun .. a little like what scanner photography and pinhole photography can be.. silly, random, pointless but nevertheless fun.. and sometimes, it can be “artistic” too, especially if I’m trying to make a statement about something with an effect that I achieve with the camera..

while I don’t have much of an opinion regarding the argument that it may not be entirely “ethical” to take a cheap, Russian-made camera, make it into a cultural icon, and then price it up accordingly to sell to the world through some elaborate business model, I'm afraid that what makes most of these people upset may be just that these two guys have been tremendously successful in what they are doing and the whole world appears to be gullibly “taken in” by this big "scam".. me? I don’t think people are really all that gullible.. it’s always a choice, no? so, in my opinion, a lot of it may be just jealousy.. which isn’t a good thing to have, I think..

anyhow, it’s clearly just great marketing at the end of it.. like how popular plastic toys like Bearbrick have become, or nike, or any of the big brandnames that people are willing to pay a premium for... and we ourselves sometimes just enjoy paying for it for the "feel-good" factor, right? nothing much to it.. no need to make a fuss about it..