Lomo Amigo Gustavo Osorio shoots with the Lubitel 166+

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Meet Gustavo Osorio, our latest LomoAmigo. After leaving his native Colombia and settling in Barcelona, Gustavo has been using his camera for more than snapshots. His photos have been used for album covers, city guides, and photography books. Read after the jump to find out more about what and how he does it!

Name Gustavo Osorio
City Originally from Bogotá (COL), currently based in Barcelona
Country Colombia/Spain

Tell the community a little bit about yourself? What do you do for fun and is it the same thing you do for a living?
Ok, I’m Gustavo Osorio, 29 and originally from Colombia. I’ve been living in Barcelona since 2001 and I prefer beer over wine.
I take photos for a living, and I like to ride my motorcycle for fun. When I’m running low on clients, I play music in bars on school nights with a crew called Oh My Gosh!

How long have you been a Lomographer (or are you new to this whole thing)?
I bought a second hand LC-A+ from a friend from Belgrade maybe two years ago. He was in Barcelona for holidays and he’d already spent all his money and needed a plane ticket to get out of town. I got if for 100€; a real bargain

Describe the Lubitel 166+ in five words:
wicked black plastic wonder box

How did you like shooting with the Lubitel 166+ and what were people´s reactions to the camera?
Shooting with the Lubitel 166+ was a nostalgic experience. In the past years I’ve been shooting probably 90% of the time with digital cameras, and small details like the winding motion or licking the film once it’s exposed has brought me back to the basics, which is really good. I enjoyed that the process of shooting with the Lubitel is very slow and crafty, and the uncertainty of not knowing how the photos came out until you get the developed film adds a little more magic to it.
And as for people’s reaction, I’ve noticed that people are more willing to be photographed by a stranger with the Lubitel 166+ than with a DSLR, I guess mainly because of the lack of privacy from the social networks on the internet; or maybe beacuse people are just not used to being in front of film cameras anymore, specially a medium format one.

You have worked with various publishers on photography books, what is your inspiration for the subject matters?
That’s a tough one; I’m not really sure where inspiration comes from. Usually what I do is read a lot of novels and try to interpret the parts I find interesting in a visual/photographic way. I also get inspired just walking around listening to my Ipod on shuffle mode. It amazes me how much literature and music can be related to photography and filmmaking.

You recently had a collaboration with Movember, the charity, what inspired you to work with them and how was that experience?
Movember was a good chance to work on some issues I was exploring at the time. I was interested in how people react to being photographed and how a slight change in people’s faces can drastically modify their expression.
I find that when being infront of a camera, you subconciously change your attitude in order to look the best you can in the picture. you pose. So, in order to make some portraits in which this posing was out of the equation , I asked some friends to grow their moustaches for a month and took a photo of them once a week using a very, very bright continuous light source that blinded them for a second or two. See some pictures here
My editor then contacted the people at Movember, who liked the idea, so we went ahead and made an exhibition. The photos were donated to movember and all the profits went to programs targeting prostate cancer and male depression. For me it was a very rewarding experience.
Project Showcased here

The strangest, funniest, or hands-down greatest photographic/ Lomographic encounter that you have ever had:
A few summers ago I was sent on assignment to Bunyol (Alicante, Spain), where the tomatina takes place. Tomatina is a tomato throwing festival held every year and as you can imagine, it can get pretty messy. Well, I was there with my camera surrounded by people getting drunk and when the action started, the most ridiculous ammount of tomato started falling on me and my shiny nikon FM-2, so i had to try and escape, but there were too many people around me throwing tomatoes at each other. Knowing I wasn’t shooting digital, I gave up and just started taking photos. I ended up smelling like ragù for a week, a damaged camera and some really cool photos. hooray for film!

If you could shoot any person alive or dead (or imaginary) with your Lubitel 166+, who would it be and why?
I’d have to say Piper Pimienta. Find him on youtube He was a salsa singer/dancer back in the 70’s. He wore crazy outfits and pulled the best moves onstage I’ve ever seen.
Either him or Klaus Kinski. Have you seen the opening of Herzog’s mein liebster feind?

*If you could take your Lubitel 166+ and films into any closet in the world, whose would it be and why?
Maybe the closet of Lux Interior and Poison Ivy from The Cramps, probably shared. They must have had a mental collection of leather goods and other weird stuff.

What’s your favorite photo you took with the Lubitel 166+ and why?

I really like the photo of the little blonde kid with the glass of wine. I remember being a bit drunk when I took the photo and it came out exactly like i was feeling at that point.

If your photos shown here could have a soundtrack of three songs, what would they be (song title & artist please).
*Tiger. Maximum Balloon
*Stranded On Earth. The Herbaliser
*Howlin’ for you. The Black Keys

What got you into photography at the first place?
I studied fine arts in college for a couple of years and I was really into sculpture. At the time the pieces i was doing were too big to carry around, so I started photographing them in order to show them to my teachers. Then, the first time I developed B&W film and spent some time in the darkroom enlarging the copies, I knew I wasn’t doing anymore sculptures, but playing with light and silver gelatin instead.

Your advice to future Lubitel 166+ shooters.
Don’t rush it; take your time to make the photo. Oh yeah, and try not to loose the lens cap.

See more of Gustavo’s work here

written by gabysalas on 2011-01-31 #people #lomoamigo

7 Comments

  1. eva_eva
    eva_eva ·

    Awesome!

  2. life_on_mars
    life_on_mars ·

    yeeeehh h=great shots

  3. life_on_mars
    life_on_mars ·

    yeeeehh h=great shots

  4. lomokobo
    lomokobo ·

    Great shots :) Where can I get an Instant Back for the Lubitel 166+?

  5. gabysalas
    gabysalas ·

    @lomohobo: sorry, there is no instant back for the Lubitel 166+, sorry, that was a typo...

  6. silverjello
  7. gitarre
    gitarre ·

    good article, awesome pictures!!!!

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