Holiday LomoAmigo: Moodification

Countless of wonderful Lomographs have been shared in our Community by this Lomographer and we surely adored them all!

And now that the holidays are in, it’s just perfect time for us to know this multi-tasking man from Germany. Let’s find out about his year and holiday plans, shall we?

Name: Peer Scholz
LomoHome: moodification
Location: Germany

Tell us about yourself. What do you do for a living? What are your interests?

[I’m a] psychiatrist, a Lomographer, a musician. I work full-time as a doctor in a hospital, have two bands, at the moment 20 cameras (and counting) and constantly not enough time to do everything that interests me ;-)

My very first interest was music, as it was around since my childhood. In my teenage years, I started playing drums and have been drumming and singing in bands right from the start. I wasn’t quite sure if I should become a musician or a doctor, but finally I decided to study medicine. Today I couldn’t be happier with this decision. I love my job as a psychiatrist and I’m still able to make music that I like without having to do mere “music jobs” to earn money.

I love meeting my friends and new people; spending time together, cooking, eating and talking. I guess I’m just interested in people and what moves them. Another reason to become a psychiatrist in the first place. And that is something that really made an impression on me when I first got into the Community: I’ve never met so many nice, helpful, interesting, creative and open-minded folks in any other place. Interesting question: Is Lomography a place? It’s probably not, but you know what I mean. As wil6ka put it, when I met him at the Photokina this year: “You need a different mind-set than the average person to do this.” And that’s what makes Lomography special!

How long have you been a Lomographer and how did you find out about the Community?

I’ve been a Lomographer for more than 1.5 years now. I didn’t really discover Lomography… I tend to think it discovered me. A few years ago, when digital cameras became affordable, I bought a digital compact camera and started to take pictures. After a while I got more and more interested and read a lot about the basics of photography. This went on and on and I used my camera on vacations and other special occasions but I didn’t really get hooked. Truth is, I’m pretty obsessive about my stuff and most of the time I didn’t bring the camera because I was afraid it would get damaged or stolen. Then in winter 2010, I stumbled across the Lomography Supersampler in a local store and because I somehow liked the idea of the four lenses, I just bought it without really knowing anything about Lomography. Then I started investigating and found out about the Community and BAM!!! I was thunderstruck! I spent hours and days looking at these colourful and extraordinary pictures, realizing that analogue photography is a whole different thing that offers so many more possibilities for me than digital photography ever could. Next thing I know, I’ve got over 4,000 pictures in my LomoHome, several cameras on the shelf and feel really uncomfortable when I don’t have a camera with me when I leave the house.

What are your plans for the holidays?

I got lucky and was able to take off the week before Christmas, so I will really have the time to get into a Christmas mood, spend some time with my family (especially with my sister and her two children who are coming to visit,) take some nice winter pictures and finish my Christmas shopping. For me, Christmas is a family thing: I just love to have all my family members gathered around the tree and spending time together.

Any New Year’s resolutions for 2013?

Hell yeah! I really want to improve in 2013! I’d like to take more portraits because these are the pictures I like the most when I’m surfing the website. I’m planning to ask some friends to sit for me. The other thing I’d like to get better at is black and white photography. I’m used to slide film and cross processing but I don’t like my b&w pictures that much. With colour photography, I can often see the picture inside my head before I take it. I don’t have that when it comes to black and white. This is what I’d like to practice more. Apart from that, my dear Lomo friend, Tim or artichekt and I are planning an exhibition with some of our shots. We are looking for a gallery or some other place at the moment… I really hope that this will work out.

Lastly, I want to practice more on the drumset. Apart from weekly rehearsals with the band, I haven’t really practiced in years. But then all of a sudden, I started practicing almost every day in October and I’m still going strong. I hope that I can keep this up in 2013. Gosh, my day needs more than 24 hours!

If you could recommend one movie and one song to everyone, what would they be?

One of my favourite movies of all time is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (even the title is genius!) with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. I actually don’t like Jim Carrey at all, but this is one of his few serious films and I just love the story and the idea. Don’t let me tell too much though: Go get the DVD! :)

My musical recommendation has to be Jarle Bernhoft, a Norwegian singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, who totally knocked me off my feet with his song The One from his first album “Ceramic City Chronicles." I don’t think you can have much more black soul as a white person. He uses a looper at his live solo concerts to create a band sound all by himself. Check out his great cover version of “Shout.”

What’s your favourite analogue camera to shoot with? Why?

I own so many fabulous cameras and I really love every single one of them for its own style, handling, and flaws. It always fascinates me how you can recognize the camera by its pictures (try that in digital photography!) But as I can only choose one, it has to be my beloved Lubitel 166+, which – I’m sad to say – is broken at the moment. I dropped it on the floor and the lenses got knocked out of sync. I really need to fix this, maybe another plan for the holidays.

What I love about this camera is that it is as analogue as it gets. You have to do all the settings on your own; there’s no auto-function. So you really have to take a good look at your subject and think about what you want to achieve in the picture. I love how that process slows me down. I think I took my best pictures with this camera, so she really is close to my heart. Baby, I promise I’ll fix you sometime very soon! ;-)

What’s the next camera you’d like to get your hands on?

By the time this article goes online, I hope to have my hands on a brand new Belair X 6-12 that I just pre-ordered! Wow, what a beauty! I like the concept of having the possibility of three different formats with a medium format camera, and the auto-exposure function is the icing on the cake!

What’s your favourite memory from this year?

Again just one? That’s hard! I think one of my favourite memories of this year was coming third in the biggest German Community rumble ever held: the Telefonbuch-Rumble. My picture was chosen out of over 25,000 photos, and I was one of ten Lomographers that were invited in the winners announcement at the Photokina in Cologne. I’m still so proud! That was a great day and by far the biggest prize in my Lomographic career.

And now for the toughest question – What’s been your favourite photo from the past year? Why?

You’re killing me! And you know it! OK, here you go:

This was my first experience with EIR Aerochrome film, taken at Anholt Castle (near the Dutch border.) I was lucky to have the opportunity to buy a few rolls of the last stock of EIR Aerochrome film and put it in the freezer for months to wait for the right moment. On this weekend the weather was amazing and I didn’t have to work. So I put the Aerochrome film in my Lubitel in total darkness (challenging!), mounted the orange filter to the lens and went to the beautiful park of Anholt Castle to shoot the roll. When I got the negatives back I was blown away! The colours were just amazing, and most of the shots turned out really well. I was very happy with the outcome and, furthermore, this roll was one of my most successful albums this year. This picture is my favourite one from that roll. It speaks to me: “Be brave! Try out new things! Don’t be afraid of mistakes! Take your time to really see what you are capturing! Enjoy the beauty of all the things around you!”

Any holiday shout-outs or tips for your fellow Lomographers?

Go out there, take some pictures, spread some love and LOMO ON! Happy Holidays y’all and see you around in the colourful world of Lomography in 2013!

written by mayeemayee on 2012-12-27 #people #videos #community #lomoamigo #moodification #holiday-lomoamigo