Então, isso é como tudo começou – General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitzky, o braço direito do Ministro URSS de Defesa e da Indústria, jogou uma câmera japonesa pequena e compacta chamada Cosina CX-1 na mesa de seu companheiro, Michail Panfilo Witsch Panfiloff, que era o diretor da poderosa fábrica russa de Armas e Óicas LOMO, examinou cuidadosamente o item, observando sua lente de vidro afiada, sua sesibilidade exrema à luz e sua carcaça robusta.

Percebendo seu potencial, os dois cavalheiros deram ordens à fábrica LOMO PLC em São Petersburgo, Rússia, para criar uma versão melhorada do Cosina CX-1 – e a primeira amostra de trabalho da LOMO LC-A nasceu!

Enquanto visitava Praga, um grupo de jovens estudantes vienenses tropeçeram pela LOMO LC-A em uma loja de câmeras peculiar e old-school, e começaram a disparar da cintura. Ao voltar para Viena, revelaram os seus rolos de filme, resultando em imagens estranhamente bonitas. Logo as perguntas começaram a vir de amigos, familiares e estranhos – eles queriam suas próprias câmeras LC-A!

Em 1994, Lomography invadiu o “world wide web” lançando lomo.com. Foi também neste ano que uma exposição lomográfica momentosa foi realizada simultaneamente em Nova York e Moscou, com enormes LomoWalls de frente para cada cidade, apresentando Lomografias coloridas, uma para a outra. Em breve, a primeira Loja de Embaixada Lomography foi estabelecida em Berlin.

Relançando a lomo.com como lomography.com, o novo site introduziu uma loja de produtos, interação com a comunidade, projetos especiais, atividades e serviços, mais a WorldArchive, que exibiu uma coleção de Lomografias incríveis de diferentes lugares de todo o mundo.

Também em 1997, o primeiro Congresso Mundial Lomográfico foi realizado em Madrid e ostentava uma LomoWall de mais de 120 metros – com mais de 35.000 fotos analógicas!

Projetada, fabricada e patenteada pela Lomography, a Supersampler , foi lançada em 2000 e surgiu como a “Rainha de todas as câmeras Multilentes”. A câmera revolucionária leva quatro imagens sequenciais em uma fotografia de 35mm.

Entre as novas funções da comunidade lançadas na lomography.com foram as LomoHomes — um espaço para a comunidade Lomography para armazenar todas as suas fotos analógicas e fazer suas próprias LomoWalls!

Em 2002, Viena aprsentou o 10º aniversário do Congresso Lomography Mundial que foi uma grande festa e mostrou belas fotos Lomography de todo o mundo.

Em 2004, instalamos a maior LomoWall até hoje durante o Congresso Mundial de Lomografia na China. Por uma semana inteira, Beijing estourou com fotos analógicas brilhantes e toneladas de atividades excitantes!

In 2006, we introduced the LOMO LC-A+. The LC-A+ offers the same endearing qualities of the original LOMO LC-A – sharp contrast, deep saturation and the trademark vignetting – while also adding more exciting features such as a multiple-exposure switch and the option to use newly-developed LC-A+ accessories!

In 2008, we launched the Lubitel+ – this is our pimped-up version of the twin-lensed classic Lubitel camera. The Lubitel offers the capability to switch between 120 and 35mm film and aperture/shutter guides.

Two photographic techniques – cross processing and redscaling – were made easier with the introduction of the very first Lomography films – the Lomography X-Pro film and Lomography Redscale film.

2010 will be remembered as the year Lomography ensured that the future would remain analogue once and for all! We took the Cologne Photokina by storm yet again, spreading analogue love and announcing our 10 Prophecies for the Analogue Future!

The revolutionary Spinner 360° was launched and was quickly awarded the European Consumers Choice Award! We then unleashed the time-travelling Sprocket Rocket in October, the first analogue camera dedicated entirely to sprockets!

We also set about ensuring that the future was on film by producing more of our own! We released a whole range of 120 and 35mm format films including special redscale and X-Pro films.

In celebration of the LOMO LC-A that started the Lomographic movement, two limited editions were created: the LC-A+ White & the LC-A+ Gold. Also in this year, 10 groups of film-fanatics from around the world teamed up to join the great LC-A Race – a race from the four corners of the globe back to Lomography headquarters in Vienna, armed only with a GPS, a notebook and an LC-A+ camera!

2012 was a hugely exciting year for all things Lomography. We launched a whole host of exciting cameras and started a big celebration for our 20th anniversary.

To start with, we announced that Lomography was re-introducing 110 film to the world! This film format had been out of production since 2009 and it was a pleasure to bring it back in style with the launches of Orca B&W 110 film and Tiger CN 110. We then followed this up by producing our very first 110 format cameras, the Fisheye Baby 110 and Diana Baby 110 (you can find out more about them on our dedicated 110 photography site).

In September, we demonstrated our ever-inquisitive nature by producing a huge survey about how the worlds of analogue and digital are involved in Lomographers’ lives. The survey was answered by over 5000 people from 82 countries and produced some very interesting results. You can view the data as an infographic on our Analogue vs Digital site.

We left what many would say was the biggest and best news of the year until October. It was in this month that we announced the launch of the Belair X 6-12, the world’s first medium format 6×12 auto-exposure camera.

And if all this wasn’t quite enough, it also happened to be the year when we reached the ripe old age of 20! That’s right, Lomography started all the way back in 1992 – we celebrated our anniversary by taking a look back at some of our favorite memories on our 20th Anniversary Site.

In the first half of 2014, three new instant cameras were launched. The LC-A+ Instant Camera and Belair X 6-12 Instant Camera turned the iconic LC-A+ and Belair X 6-12 into instant snap-shooters. Then in May came the Lomo’Instant, Lomography’s first dedicated instant camera and the world’s most creative instant camera! It was our 3rd consecutive successful Kickstarter campaign and made Lomography the first company to ever have 2 projects raise over $1 million in the Product Design category of Kickstarter.

During the year, we also launched the New Russar+ Lens (L36/M Mount), which expands the Lomography Art Lens family. The New Russar+ is a rebirth of the legendary 1958 Russar MR-2, which was the mother of all modern super wide-angle lenses. With the New Russar+, you can shoot sharp wide-angle photos bursting with wonderful character. It’s perfect for capturing landscapes, architectural shots, portraits and street photography.

In August, we celebrated a year since we first unveiled the New Petzval Lens by holding the first ever dedicated Petzval competition and displaying the best photos taken with the New Petzval in Lomography Gallery Stores around the world. To coincide with Film Photography Day earlier in the year, we also held two ‘Search For Analogue Stars’ competitions in order to find the very best photographers shooting film in the 21st century.

We also had a bunch of exciting film launches during the year. In July, we unveiled to the world Cine200 Tungsten Film; it’s a real cinematic film which has been specially altered to enable it to be used on 35mm photographic cameras. Having sold out in a matter of days, we were thrilled to be able to offer its follow-up, the 400 ISO Cine400 Tungsten Film, in October. And our film fun was not done yet. Later in October, LomoChrome Turquoise XR 100-400 Color Negative Film was launched. This film works similarly to LomoChrome Purple Film but offers brand new, crazy and fun color shifts to enjoy. It bathes your photos in lustrous tones – turning lighter colors into varying shades of blues from aqua to cobalt, transforming greens into deep emerald shades and changing a crystal clear sea into a golden hue.

In April 2016, we launched a brand new addition to the ever-expanding Lomography Art Lens family. Inspired by the lens that gave the world practical photography, the Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens is perfect for shooting rich, atmospheric images with beautiful bokeh backgrounds. Our brand new Art Lens was successfully funded on Kickstarter in just four hours – we could not have asked for a better response!

Hugely inspired by the support for the Daguerreotype Achromat, August 2016 saw us return to Kickstarter to launch an instant camera unlike any other. Fully automatic, jam-packed with creative features and super easy to use, the Lomo’Instant Automat lets you take perfectly-exposed pictures in any and every lighting situation. Our brand new instant innovation was a huge success, and received excellent reviews from around the world.

We were super excited to take our two brand new inventions to Photokina, the world’s leading trade fair for photo and video. We had tons of fun at our booth holding a live instant competition, hosting exhibitions, chatting to visitors, and letting people try out the very latest Lomography products. We were thrilled that so many people came to see us and loved our products!

Competitions celebrating the great photography produced by our talented Community have always been at the heart of Lomography, and that’s why we decided to launch the TEN AND ONE Annual Lomography Photo Award. Lomographers are challenged to explore the fringes of photography, think outside the box, and enter their best shots into 11 different categories including “Urban Explorers” and “Breaking Boundaries”. The winners of each category then qualify for the TEN AND ONE Annual Lomography Photo Award. In 2016 we received tons of inspirational entries and we were delighted to award the winner over 20,000 EUR worth of prizes at the end of the year!