Don't think, just shoot...

...is the motto of one of my hobbies: Lomography.

Lomography is an analog photography movement and community. Its name is inspired by the Russian optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg that created and produced a camera called LOMO LC-A Compact Automat.

In the early 90ies, a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo LC-A and were "charmed by the unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry" images that the camera produced. In 1992 the Lomographic Society was founded and its members presented their works at a number of international art exhibitions .The Viennese students and fuonders of the Lomographic Society wanted to make this fantastic little camera available to as many people as possible, so they flew to St. Petersburg to work out a contract for the worldwide distribution of the LC-A.

By now, Lomography has produced and marketed an entire line of their own analog cameras. Most of them produce special photographic effects such as "oversaturated colors or blurring", usually considered bad in "normal" photography.

I have always been interested in photography. When a former classmate then introduced me to the world of Lomography, I bought myself a Diana Mini camera at the next possible occasion, impulsive as I can be. :-) I hadn't used an analog camera for about ten years at that time, and knew next to nothing about aperture, exposure or ISO-settings.

Thank God the camera settings were very simple. You could only choose "sunny" or "cloudy" (which meant different aperture settings) and about five focus settings, ranging from 0.6m to infinite. I put in a roll of film and started to shoot. After having taken about 36 shots, I brought it to the lab to have my pictures developed. In a world of instant gratification, having to wait for your pictures is a very peculiar yet exciting feeling.

The results were...well, surprising (see below). Apparently, I hadn't wound the film properly so that all the pictures were overlapping. I was very disappointed until my classmate told me that her first three films had been completely blank.

The following films I shot turned out a lot less messy. In hindsight, though, I like my first pictures more than the latter ones because they were so surprising and experimental. 

Some months later I bought a second camera (the original Lomo LC-A with which this movement started), and only a few days after having received it I got an email saying that one of my first (messy) pictures had won a competition on the Lomography website! My price? Another Lomo camera :-)

If you asked me which of the three cameras I own is my favourite, I couldn't tell. I like the LC-A because it is simple to handle and produces less blurry pictures than the Diana Mini. Besides, it has beautiful vignetting (that means that the edges of a picture are darker than the middle), especially if you use a technique called "cross-processing", where you develop the film in the "wrong" chemicals.

The Diana Mini, on the other hand, looks adorably cute, is unbreakable because it is so simple and its results are always surprising - you never know what you'll get.

If I want to take pictures of something important, I would never only take a Lomo camera with me because the outcome is too unpredictable (and chances are that there is no outcome at all...). Lomography is simply a means of having fun with photography. You can create wonderful pieces of art by disobeying usual rules of "professional" photography. Besides, the cameras' adorable look makes everyone smile or pose for a picture, I swear :-)

Live dangerously - go analog!

The impossible quiz

Last night, we finally participated in a Pub Quiz at The Office Pub in Graz! What is a Pub Quiz? Well, a quiz that is held in a pub - in English. We had wanted to take part the week before, but got there too late. If you want to participate, make sure to find a "victim" who arrives at The Office at around 4pm and finds a table for your group!

The quiz consists of five rounds to ten points each. In the first round, we had to guess celebrities from pictures in which they were wearing funny hats (see picture on the right). In another round (personally, my favourite) we listened to parts of songs and when the music stopped, we had to write down the lyrics that would've come next. In the other three rounds, a quizmaster asked questions and we had to write down the answers - sounds easy, but is not.

The questions cover many different topics (sports, music, hisotry, medicine...), but one thing they all have in common: you have most likely not learned about them at school or university! Or did your teachers ever tell you what a Samurai without a master is called? Would you know the name of a card game that is played with a regular deck of cards, is most likely derived from the Italian Scopa, and whose goal it is to reach 21 points? Do you know in which country you are most likely to be poisoned?

It seemed like sheer luck that we knew any of those answers, but in the end, we were the second best "virgin team" (a team that participates for the first time). I highly respect the people who have accumulated so much useless knowledge over time that they could answer almost all the questions...we still have a long way to go, but we are going to participate again next week because it was great fun!

Monolingual Dictionaries

Again, we have to post a rewritten version of our homework on our blog. This time we had a look at monolingual dictionaries in order to find out which one is our favourite.

Having looked at a number of monolingual print dictionaries in class this week, I have decided to buy the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. It is an excellently structured, not too bulky book containing all the information an advanced English learner could possibly need. Not only does every entry come with phonetic transcription and an explanation of the word but there are also tips after most of the words informing you about strong collocations or other characteristics. If a word is mainly used in British English, for example, you will find ‘BrE‘ written next to it, which is helpful especially if you try to (or have to) aim for a certain standard of English. I couldn’t find any disadvantages to this dictionary, except for the exorbitant prices of print dictionaries in general maybe. For a bibliophile like me, a good monolingual dictionary is certainly worth the investment, so I am going to put the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary on my birthday wish list.

I was pleased that Fiona liked my homework, but of course it can always be improved on. :-)

Instead of looking up German words in online dictionaries because I want to know their English equivalents, I should rather try to describe them in another way. By choosing from a long list of English suggestions, there is a good chance you will pick a word you can't use in a certain phrase.

I should also try to avoid words such as "good" or "nice" and find synoyms for them instead.

Silence is golden

You appreciate the convenience of eating out but the constant chit-chat in the background annoys you? Then you will love the "Eat" restaurant in New York City's fashionable Greenpoint neighbourhood. The restaurant's name is minimalistic (and so is the furniture), but says it all. At "Eat", you should only eat - not talk, nor use your mobile phone. 

The owner says he was inspired to hold "silent dinners" after speding some time with Buddhist monks in India. At first he wanted to organise one silent dinner each month. His restaurant only seats 25 people, though, and a lot more than that were interested in the project. Now there are weekly no-talking menus, but costumers still have to reserve days in advance.

Every no-talking meal consists of four courses, each based on local organic ingredients, and costs $40.

If you want to find out more about this restaurant or plan to join a silent dinner, have a look at their facebook page.