Little Ms Lomo, a blast from the past

Here she is in all her "glory", a mass produced little toy from the 1960's. She has her charms though and faded into semi legend as she is she can still take medium format images that make the pulse quicken. Light leaks, colour distortions, image distortions.... even in her mature, twilight years she's a naughty little thing. So bad she's good. Her fans are still loyal, they band together in sleazy websites and expensive shops and call themselves Lomographers. They don't see her faded looks, the thick make up, the laddered stockings, to them she will always be beautiful, always an artiste....and she's mine!

Beware though, there's another Diana. Expensive and slick and tricked out in borrowed finery. A tribute act that's all surface shininess. She hangs out in glossy high street shops and calls herself Lomo and Diana but she's a young pretender. If you want real Tango you go to the low dives of Buenos Ares not the high class ballrooms of the Strictly crowd. If you want real Mambo you go to the cheap clubs of Havana with their driving, erotic abandon, not the diluted refinements of Catskills resorts.....and if you want real Lomo you search in the dust and danger of car boot sales or the tacky preloved splendour of EBay, not the overpriced retail palaces of "Lomography" shops.