My First Best Picture

The photo below is my first favourite picture I ever took with my LC-A. I’d got the thing after I’d explored the Lomography shop and found something more camera-shaped that I felt could get me into the hobby. I had a lot of trouble with it before I got anything I liked: I couldn’t get right – or totally forgot about – the spot focusing switch, meaning the first roll I took was nothing more than 30 prints of smudgy blurs. The second reel was some slide film I’d bought, which I thought would save me from my inexperience, but I overexposed the whole reel, making everything luring green without any contrast or details.

Oh dear.

I left the camera on my shelf for a while, disappointed at myself, before a chance visit to Berlin with work saw it disappearing into my overnight bag on a whim. I tried to be more sensible with my shooting, remembered to focus and check the light meter every time and just chill out with the whole experience, and was rewarded with my first shot I felt proud of.

I love this photo because it ironically takes my two previous problems and makes them work in this image. The frosted glass naturally blurs the bike, apart from the handlebar where it rests against the glass (where I was aiming my focus point!) and the lens of the LC-A naturally makes the lurid light behind it glow with an eerie cross processed hue.

It’s the photo that made me percevere with photography, and for that I am forever thankful to it.

written by mattlongstaff on 2011-03-25