Lydia Ramsdell on Discovering 110 Film, Advice to Budding Photographers, and LomoApparat First Impressions

Southern-born and New York-based photographer Lydia Ramsdell has been on our radar for some time due to her love of our 110 film stocks, utilizing the tiny film format in her practice of documenting every day life.

In a full circle moment, she is here with us today to share 110 shots from her first semester studying photography at Parsons School of Design alongside photos from her last semester taken on the LomoApparat 35 mm camera.

Photos by Lydia Ramsdell

Hi Lydia and welcome to Lomography Magazine! Can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself and your work?

I am an artist and photographer who makes images about the temporal nature of the human experience, primarily focusing on the intimacies of inhabiting a physical body.

Tell us about your background in photography — what made you start taking photos and decide to pursue it as a career?

If I’m being honest I have never been able to nail down the exact reason for my desire to begin photography. I could speak for hours about why I do it now, but my initial inspiration is lost on me. I feel that I may have been inspired by my grandfather who was our family photographer and could always be found behind a camera.

Why shoot film in this digital age? How does it complement your style?

I often find myself struggling with a desire to distance myself from the physical process of "taking a photograph.” I find the pressure to make one perfect decision to be overwhelming, and one of the ways I reduce this pressure is to completely remove the option to “check” the image entirely. This way I am forced to trust myself and my artistic eye/desire.

Photos by Lydia Ramsdell

How did you discover Lomography?

In 2019 my grandmother on my mom’s side passed away, and I was given her Kodak Ektralite 110 Camera. I needed film to use it and as I was living in North Carolina at the time, the only place I could find 110 films was online through Lomography. The first film I used was the Color Tiger 110 ISO 200 and the B&W Orca 110 ISO 100.

Can you tell us a bit about the photos that you shared with us?

The photos I shared are a mix of images taken on my first ever Lomography rolls and my most recent roll with the LomoApparat.

The first few images I had taken were a mix of both the North Carolina Mountains and my first semester in New York. The last roll was shot over my final semester at Parsons School of Design in New York.

Photo by Lydia Ramsdell

Do you have an all time favorite photo taken on film? Is there a story behind it?

My all time favorite film photograph is one I took at a local swimming hole in North Carolina, a place where people often go to jump off tall rock formations into ice cold mountain waterfalls.

I was there swimming and had to have my camera with me, but I feel lucky that the roll already loaded from the previous day was a black and white roll.

Something about the formal tone associated with black and white photography used to capture the carefree joy of the subjects makes me feel like I achieved something, a "good" photograph.

Photos by Lydia Ramsdell

If you could share some advice with budding photographers, what would it be?

Just take photos of whatever you want to. If you are in school complete your assignments but be sure to photograph anything you really want to on the side. You cannot rely on an academic setting to fully satisfy the creative mind.

If you are just starting, take photos of everything and start narrowing down what you do and don’t like to photograph. Don’t feel pressured to post everything online, share what you really want to.

Photos by Lydia Ramsdell

If you could take a Lomography product with you anywhere in the world, what gear would you pack and where would you travel?

I would take my grandmother's 110 camera and likely travel to North Carolina again. I want to photograph my grandparents' homes, and "landscapes" of the places and multiple homes I grew up in.

If I were to travel out of the country I would travel to Thailand and I would also take the Color Tiger film with me.

Do you have any hopes for the future of analogue photography?

I hope that people simply continue to use the medium. I don’t really mind if it’s just for fun social images, or if you use the film camera as your main artistic medium. I just hope that there is enough interest to continue the manufacture of film and analogue products.

That said, film photography is incredibly inaccessible when it comes to the price point of equipment and materials, so I also hope that there is a middle ground to be found between supply and demand.


If you're interested in keeping up with Lydia and her work, make sure to check out her Instagram and website.

written by eloffreno on 2024-06-13 #gear #culture #people #35mm #artist #110 #nyc #documentary #fine-arts

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