Love at First Lomo: How Diana Mini Turned My Life Upside Down!

Let me tell you about how I fell in love with the Diana Mini and started seeing the world in completely different colours and perspectives. The wonderful time of being a beginner in the lomo world and everything is new and fascinating!

My story with Lomography begun just couple of months ago and, as I still feel the excitement every time I go out with my Diana Mini in my hand. I decided it is good moment to share my story and show the pictures from my first lomo film.

Surrounded by people who took wonderful shots with huge digital cameras, I always believed that digital photography is just not my kind of thing. I also believed that digital photography demands either a lot of precision and perfection or good Photoshop skills; neither of it was my kind of thing.

So I lived many years without any camera, I have never got any digital camera (well, apart from the one in my phone). Not that I didn’t want to but none of them seemed perfect. I knew Diana existed before but since I believed that ALL kind of photography was not for me. I didn’t really look into Lomography, until one day in a cafe, I saw a wonderful Diana Mini White. That day, I looked up on the internet where could I get and decided to order it any time soon.

However, I let some weeks pass and I found myself in a situation where I just could not travel and do everything I wanted due to some personal issues. For a moment I thought, “Hey, I should not buy a camera now since I can’t take great pictures anyway. I will wait and when the situation gets better, I will buy a Diana Mini White as a reward!” Before long, I went to Madrid for New Year’s Eve party and got convinced that I should buy camera no matter what. So, I finally did it. I got my first lomo camera in Lomography Gallery Store Madrid Echegaray and so, my lomo love story began! I did not take a single picture of Madrid monuments, but many of everyday life!

The first lesson I learned was that lomography is not about travelling to wonderful places but about shooting everyday life and being surprised with the results! I have tried, so far, Lomography Color Negative 400 35 mm, Lomography X Tungsten 64 35 mm, and the next one will be Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 35 mm. I also bought Lomography Mixed Film Pack to experiment more!

There is nothing better then the excitement of waiting for the film to be developed.

So here I am, shooting my everyday surroundings and discovering places that have been always next to me from a completely different perspective. I discover them twice. First time when I see that there is something special about the place I have passed milion times before and decide to take a picture, and the second time when I get the film developed! Like when I took the photo of cava glasses on the piano and the result was completely unpredictable!

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So after couple of months of experiments, I can tell that Diana Mini is a great tiny companion of everyday adventures whether you want to take a square frame, multi-exposure, long exposure or the famous half-frame thank to which you can keep on shooting up to 72 pictures without being worried about the end of the film!

I already plan to buy my next lomo camera but I know that Diana Mini will keep its special place in my lomo world!

The Diana Mini is the ultra-compact, petite version of the Diana F+. This camera takes soft-focused, lo-fi images in 35mm and allows you to change between half-format and square shots with a flick of a switch. Get your own Diana Mini now!

written by karo_mini on 2012-03-05 #lifestyle #winter #xmas #lomography #madrid #diana-mini #analogue-lifestyle #love-at-first-lomo #new-to-lomography