Lomography

A glimpse into my few beautiful months with the ever lovely Diana Mini.

It was Christmas morning when I opened up a beautifully wrapped box, inside it was a tiny treasure, as long as my index finger and as tiny as a post-it. It was a brand new, sparkling camera. After months of waiting, I finally had her, my very own Diana Mini. It was love at first sight; I excitably loaded up my film and began shooting my Christmas on her. She was everything I had expected and more, lightweight and incredibly fun to use.

From that Christmas day we were inseparable, I took her everywhere; to university, to my boyfriend’s house, to the beach, to the countryside, absolutely everywhere. I shot everything on her, from portraits to dogs jumping in the air to still life shots of fruit; she worked like a dream in absolutely any situation. For months I didn’t pick up another camera, my OM-2 lie dormant while I experimented with my new little gem. Although she was small, she had the same mighty capabilities of my Holga and Diana 151, the images were both soft and sharp, the colours vivid and the shots perfect, whether I was shooting in natural light or using her adorable flash.

Then one day, exactly a year ago today in fact, I took her to London to take some shots in the Science Museum (where better place to shoot for a lomographer?!) And along the south bank to capture some of the sea in the city scenes, I had loaded up some slide film in her for the first time and was passionately shooting away under the beautiful London sun. Little did I know that my Diana Mini had started to slip away, her shutter curtain had become stuck on each shot, blowing out each of my images; I hopefully waited, with baited breath to see if anything fixed her, unfortunately nothing worked. She fell into disrepair just before high summer in England. I was absolutely and entirely devastated, that little camera was my favourite creative tool. I haven’t gotten round to buy myself a new one yet, but now it is definitely time. I can’t wait to open up my new little gem in a few weeks, I’m sure it’ll be rekindled love.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have been upset about a camera which suffered a terrible fate, I’d love to know what cameras you’ve loved and lost.

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!