Do IT Yourself

When I first heard the word “lomo” I thought it was a cut of meat. Lomo is the Tagalog (also Visayan) word for tenderloin. But when I read up on it I realized that it was not only the name of the Russian makers of the camera, but also of the technique by which blurriness, oversaturated colors or off-kilter angles are now considered chic when they used to be—well, bad photography.

Lest the lomo enthusiasts start giving me flak about my statement above, I would like to come on record as having spend more than half my salary in the mid-90s on film and film processing on this Minolta which is an heirloom from my aunt, now in Seattle, Washington, US of A, and comfortably ensconced in the digital age. I too consider myself as ensconced, but not as much as I would like to be, as my idea of ensconce-ment is a digital SLR. Maybe in a year or two I would have a hand-me-down DSLR but until then …

Which brings me back to this Minolta, which has not been used since I got my first digital camera (another hand me down) in 2003. I’ve cleaned the parts that can be reached by cotton swabs, and I’m hoping that when I go out to get ASA 100 film the shutter will work and I will be able to take pictures with it again.