2012: A Year of Analogue Passion

This last year was my first full year in this great community. I got in touch with very nice and interesting people around the globe and I saw many many great pictures which in fact wasn´t helpful for my bank account. I was really inspired by a lot of shots you took and so I badly had to buy this and that and try this or that. But thanks a lot for the input. Here, I want to show you my favorite shots of the last 12 months, one for each month, which is pretty hard to choose. You won’t miss my best failures too, and the ones I like from the best of the community.

Upfront a short summary of my first Lomo Year. It was fun and I became very passionate in taking photographs. During the year I bought quite a few cams on Ebay and in the Lomography Shop. I took more than 2000 shots and there is really a lot of crap. Sometimes, I uploaded this but now I try to filter it. I really like the helpful and open-minded community and enjoy being part of it.

So now, here we go.

I started the year with a bad scan or better, bad print! Anyway, it’s a nice shot, I think. I was strolling around and stepped into this backyard in a pretty strange neighborhood in Berlin named Rixdorf. There must have been a fuel station in the yard. Rixdorf is in the more northern part of the city district Neukölln in Berlin and it is like a small island. Surrounded by stressy city there are between two big roads and a little bit hidden suddenly tiny houses for families which were build at the end of the 18th century. It’s the so-called Bohemian Village.

On the negative you can see the entire sign.

In February, I bought me a Holga CFN. I fell in love with this camera immediately. I took this shot while on my way home from work, I think. At least it is around the corner of the office I worked back then and because it was heavily snowing I couldn’t take the bike to work. There was this basket with snow on top and the snow falling and I was giving it a try to capture the snow in the air.

The man with the pipe is one of my favourite shots so far. The ease makes it so special for me. The picture was taken in the yard of an old castle where there was an anniversary, and many, many people and a lot of kids running around and screaming. A bit aside there was “The man with the pipe”.

In April, I had this idea to make some moustache pictures and I had this nice football jersey from the Austrian national team so here you go:

I like it.

May is next. Well, I was up on a roll of doubles with my Holga. This shot is not one of my worst failures but one of the best. I was trying to make makros of flowers and a second layer of architecture. You can’t notice macro flowers on the entire roll but anyway this shot of the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin came out pretty well without any flower.

In the beginning of June I was playing an Ultimate Beach Frisbee tournament on the island of Usedom in Germany. I played with a team of parents — meaning you’re only allowed to play if you have kids. That´s pretty nice because everyone is taking care of them during the games. Even the older kids among all those kids. I really like the shots I took there with my Holga.

In July, I was on holiday at the Baltic Sea with my family and the grandma of my kids. We had a great time even though it was raining a lot during the two weeks we stayed there. On a walk with the family I took this shot which I like a lot.

The next shot was taken at a tiny swimming pool in a hospital. We went there with the baby and it looked so much like a pretty good photo-opportunity that I had to bring my Seagull. The entire roll is pretty good, I think. At least, I like it a lot. I think that especially this shot is a bit underrated among my pictures.

September was a great month when it comes to taking pictures. I was strolling, I was away for an anniversary, I was at the Drachenfest with ck_berlin and sushi_3003. There are about 5 to 10 shots of mine which I would say belong to the best shots I took this year. The one I chose here is the “Ghost” shot. I was inspired by a digital shot on Tumblr and thought of taking it as an analogue shot. A mission I have to say but I am proud of this result.

The next months was tranquille in matters of taking pictures. Somehow, without even noticing, I didn’t take many pictures that month and I must say there is none I would really recommend as a pretty good photo. So, no shot chosen for October.

The next month was a pretty good one again. I flew to Barcelona to play a Beach Ultimate (Frisbee) Tournament and even though I went there with about 25 rolls (for 5 days) and came back with about 5 exposed rolls of film; it was really good. In the end it’s the quality not the quantity! There are several shots I could have taken from the trip to Spain or even pictures I took in Berlin but this one is really nice for me.

So we’re already in December. Again, so nice shots but I fell in love with the Lubitel 166+ I just ordered and this longtime exposure. Can´t say more. And well, even though it´s December 29th the months isn´t over yet. I had about my first shooting with a friend of mine yesterday and I think there might be pics that come close to this one:

I hope you enjoyed my selection!

Now, here we go with the great failures of the year.

I only took a few out of those that didn’t turn out good. As you know, the so-so-shots are plenty as you only get a few or even none pretty good shot out of a roll.

This one belongs to s series of doubles I took of drawings of Ralph Steadman — illustrator of the infamous book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” — and shots of skaters in magazines.

DIY redscale. Nice idea but very bad roll. First: it looks like crap. Second and on top of it: my SLR had really problems with transporting the film. So, after this, roll the almost new batteries were empty.

I was very euphoric when I saw these guys with their bikes in the woods. I thought I can take good shots but however I didn’t.

I bought me this Japanese 127-film cam (Anny 44) on ebay. I was really looking forward to the results. There is only one store in Berlin selling 127 and so I went there and go me a roll of Rollei Crossbird. I knew the film already and thought I’ll get nice results but unfortunately the results look like being even more older than the cam.

I took some night shots with Holga in this street and thought I might even get better results with the Seagull. But for what reason ever the entire roll looks shitty.

Definitely one of my worst moments this year. I was asked what I’d wish to get for my anniversary and it was pretty simple as I wanted a Horizon Perfekt badly. I got it and loaded it but it felt like something wasn’t really good. But I said to myself that it is only because I don’t know the cam. I was on holiday that time when there was my birthday and while shooting my first roll, the knob for rewinding the film fell off. I ordered a new one and got it delivered to where I stayed during my stay at the Baltic Sea. While shooting my 3rd roll during holidays I suddenly noticed that the wheel for setting the exposure time wasn’t adjusted correctly. In a way, the shots taken during daytime were overexposed as it was very sunny. I was looking forward to this shot because I took a similar with my mobile phone a few years ago in France. In the end I noticed I didn’t load the film correctly. Errr…

Now, I’ll let you know about a few shots among those many I like a lot which I like a little bit more. With no particular order in there: