We’re always striving to take our photography to the next level. With photography, it’s easy to get lost amongst the pack and produce similar shots to what everyone else is producing. It’s not enough for us to produce the best photos which our clients have seen of themselves, we want to create some magic which takes their breath away – without too much use of photoshop to create them! We want to be known as fine art photographers in Melbourne. We want to be amongst the best. This was a challenge to which we gave some serious thought, resulting in our recent purchases of the Lomography Art Series lenses.

To Be the Best – Photography in Melbourne

We’ve always loved the film look. There’s even a film camera sitting in our office with rolls of film, ready to go! Unfortunately, we haven’t taken it out for a photo shoot yet. It’s too easy just to pick up our digital cameras and apply a film filter to our shots to give us the look we’re after. Still, a film filter applied to the photos was just not creating that magic we were after. After seeing some recent works from one of our favourite photographers (Emily Soto) using the Lomography Petzval 85mm 2.2 Art Series lens, we decided that that was the direction which we wanted to go as well.

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What is Lomography?

The Lomographic Society was founded in Austria in the early nineties. They came up with the type of photography which is known as Lomography, after experimenting with a cheap Russian toy camera which produced photos with soft focus, vignetting and high contrast. Lomography is gaining popularity and is considered an art movement. The Lomography Society has created a website where you can satisfy all your Lomography needs, from purchasing a camera to sharing your creativity.

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The Not-So-Sharp Kids on the Block

Our first purchase was the Petzval 85mm 2.2 lens. This lens creates some amazing background blur when taking portraits. When shooting towards a sunset, this lens also produces some amazing lens flare! The magic we were after was finally there. Our portraits were becoming dreamier and more fine-art. It’s tricky to achieve much sharpness with this lens, but the soft-focus which comes from it is what makes this lens so special. For sharper portraits without the swirly background, we will still pull out our Canon 85mm 1.2 lens.

Fine Art Photographers in Melbourne

This Petzval 85mm 2.2 Art Lens was so impressive that it made us want more. More blur, more swirly background – something which is hard to replicate in photoshop. Luckily for us, Lomography was producing all these wonderful lenses for us to play with. We promptly ordered a Petzval 58mm 1.9 and the Achromat 2.9 lens via Kickstarter. It was a long 3 month wait for these beauties to arrive as they were in the process of being manufactured. We were one of the first in Australia to receive a copy. They were worth the wait!

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Location, Location, Location – Cherry Blossoms

For their first outing, we headed down to Red Hill Cherry Farm which promised an orchard full of blossoms for us to enjoy. The rain came down just as we arrived at the farm for our pre-booked time at the orchard. We had this trip planned a few weeks in advance and decided to head down there, rain or shine. After an approximate 30 minute wait, the rain eased just enough for us to venture into the orchard. It was quite a muddy trudge through the orchard, in white shoes and a white dress.

We noticed some ladies turning up in heels, probably hoping to get lovely photos of themselves amongst the blossoms! The rain continued to fall, making it very hard to shoot as these lenses are not water resistant! When it finally cleared, we spent some time shooting. The more we shot, the more we loved these lenses.

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Creating Magic – Fine Art Wedding Photography

Let’s see when we can take these great lenses out to a wedding – we will need a bit more time for our shots. Maybe not ideal for a fast-paced wedding but a wedding pre-shoot will be ideal.

There’s so much learning to be done when using these lenses. Yes, it’s not as straightforward as pointing the camera and shooting. Thought must be given to location, light and styling if you want to produce the best images possible. These lenses require some stable hands or a tripod if you want to achieve some sharpness. As mentioned before, it’s all about the dreamy photos that these lenses can produce. The photos which are produced by them are definitely of the fine art kind.

With a lot of practice, we’re going to make a lot of magical images which will leave a lasting memory. Hope our images inspire you to go a little arty with your photography. Maybe you want some magical images of yourself and your loved ones. Give us a call to chat about it.

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