Lomography Partners: Molly Lifestyle of Taipei, Taiwan

Come one, come all. Lomography has partners all over the world to help serve your analogue needs. If you're from Taiwan then it's your lucky day! We're featuring our Taipei-based stockist Ralf of the stationery store Molly Lifestyle in today's instalment of Lomography Partners.

Hello and welcome to Lomography Magazine! Can you introduce yourself to the Lomography community? Please tell us about yourself and what you do.

Hello everyone, I am Mr. Ralf, the owner of Molly Lifestyle. I was a small patent engineer in the past. By chance, I had the opportunity to open this small handbook, pen and film shop. Molly Lifestyle is small but complete.

What’s the story behind your store? How did it all start?

Let me first talk about “Lifestyle”. For me, the definition of lifestyle is an act of being willing to write with a pen, to make your own handbook, and to take photos with film. After all, in this fast-paced digital age, these "three acts" - writing, collage, and film photography are all very slow-paced activities. While using a pen to write, you have to wait for the ink to dry, and you can’t alter it. The same is true for shooting film. If you find out the lens cap has not been removed after you pressed the shutter, what you can do is to retake the photo but you cannot delete. Also for film photography, you have to wait for the film to be processed and scanned to get the image.

I hope everyone can fall in love with these three behaviors mentioned above. That’s why I started to think of opening a shop, and founded Molly Lifestyle. Let people fall in love with the feeling on the friction between a pen tip and a paper, experience the feeling of inserting a roll of film into a camera, imagine the chemical reaction of the light on the film after the shutter is pressed, etc. Not to Let people forget "pen", "film" and "handbook". Maybe in the future, it will be rare to see physical photo paper or handwriting on paper again! Maybe the ugly writing that I have now on the notebook, will be a well-accepted collective item in the future.

The concept of establishing the Molly Lifestyle shop is to provide three major types of goods and services: writing (pen), film photography (film sales), and handbook (actual text records). Let people have a physical store in Taiwan, to see, to feel and to weight these items, and enjoy using them.

Do you have a favorite Lomography product and why?

My favorite products from Lomography, of course, are their films – LomoChrome Metropolis ISO 100-400 and Potsdam Kino B&W ISO 100. These are my favorite negative films that I like most at present. You can check out the photo album on our fan page of Molly Lifestyle. There are many sample photos taken with these films.

Who or what inspires you?

Live in the present seriously every day. Every bit of life can inspire me.

What’s your favorite part of your job? And what’s the most difficult part of it?

In fact, the most favorite part of my job is often the hardest part, which is to maintain my enthusiasm and motivation.

Do you have any future plans for the store or projects you’re working on that you can tell us about?

My plan is to continue exploring good stationery and films from different countries, recommend them to the people, and let people use them and understand the meaning behind them.

Of course, Molly Lifestyle will continue to serve people in the form of a physical store in Taiwan, serve them with pens, films, and handbooks; and encourage a correct mentality to use them, so that people can have their own lifestyle.

Want to see your favorite store featured in our magazine? Please send us an email at wholesaleinquiries@lomography.com and we will check them out!

written by alexgray on 2023-10-31 #partners #taiwan #gear #community #taipei #lomography-partners