Featured Travel Lomographer/Photographer: Cameron Russell

This is part of our interview series with Travel Photographers:

One of the most awesome things about photography is the different interpretations you can get from the same place. One monument can be looked at a million different ways depending on whose eyes are looking at them. One fantastic example of this is the up-and-coming photographer/lomographer Cameron Russell.

Cameron not only takes on a home-town tourism angle at his photography, but has managed to capture travel icons from around the United States in a new, refreshing manner. His work not only inspires, but has also caught the eye of several leading photography websites.

Heya Cameron! Tell us a little about yourself:

Hi. We’ll I’m a TX native who’s been in Austin a little over 10 years, now. I have a day job for a large computer company that feeds my passions. I am not my job, though. I picked up on film photography in general , about a year and a half ago. I am a huge film nerd and I have always been a visual based person. I remember movies, better than most, after one viewing. I always wondered what I was supposed to do with myself. I had artistic urges and wanted to create, but I always needed a partner in crime to execute them with. Finding photography, I was able to chase an artistic idea without waiting for someone else to facilitate it. I follow my passions with full force, when they present themselves. I’m not a “toe in the water first” type of person. I’m rapidly falling down the rabbit hole of film photography and never want to hit bottom.

What about lomography drew you to it?

I had a digital point and shoot that I used for concerts and road trips, but I never really did anything that got me jazzed. I always felt like cameras got in the way of having fun. Taking too long to get people together to pose for shots, having to choose/adjust setting, telling people to hold for one more shot. Everyone ended up with the same lifeless pictures that were of what was there but not capturing the feeling of the place.

About a year and ½ ago, I found an iPhone app called CameraBag that had filters in it. A filter called Helga had really neat colors and vignetting. I looked up the app to find out what it was emulating. Turns out it’s was a Holga, a hulking plastic beast from China. I delved deeper and discovered the Lomography website and a few other blogs about the concepts. I got the Holga for X-mas and started shooting right away.

The thing I loved most about Lomography was the idea that whatever rules there were in photography didn’t apply to Lomography. Shoot from the hip. Take multiple exposures and don’t think about them. Always carry your camera with you. I fell in love with double exposures. Mixing and matching separate elements on purpose or by random selection was fascinating. You could create infinite combinations, never trapped by the restriction that there was nothing to shoot. When you use multiple exposures, there is always something you can shoot. Your eye wakes up, always searching for something beautiful to pull into the lens for a later mix up. With SLRs and other high end cameras, it seems like a burden around your neck. You don’t always want to carry it with you to a restaurant, party, corner shop, or work. People change when the see the “barrel” of an SLR. They become more self conscious. Lomo cameras disarm people. They either don’t think it’s a real camera or they don’t even see it.

What is your weapon of choice?

3 months after I got the Holga, I started desiring more control and portability. The Holga is light, but it always had to be in hand or on a strap. Not a pocket camera, by any means. Also, there is little to control on a Holga. I wanted to adjust the exposure time on my doubles to bring out subjects more than textures and backgrounds.

I bought an LC-A+ or a Lomo Kompact Automat + (Lomo Compact Automatic +). I used my tax refund and received it before spring break. This little guy fits in a back pocket, has a shutter lock/lens guard, iso from 100-1600, built in light meter for exposure time that closes the shutter when it’s had enough, a hot shoe, a switch to crank the shutter without advancing the film, 32mm plastic lens for amazing saturation, and 4 focus settings 3′ -4 1/2′-9′-infinite. You don’t have to look to set focus. Never have to worry about getting the proper exposure time.

Now I carry this in my back pocket no matter where I am. It’s never in the way and I can get a shot in less than 10 seconds from pocket to shot to pocket. People don’t expect it and I don’t worry about zoom. I have none. I use a little Colorsplash flash from Lomography for night time and fill flash shots. It had 4 spaces for color gels that you can rotate, on the fly. It fits in my other pocket. Going out for the night, my photo gear fills up both back pockets and never weighs me down. Traveling with it isn’t a thought. The only thing I have to consider is how much film I’m carrying with me.

I’ve recently come around to the opinion that the camera’s job is to get out of the way of the photographer getting the picture. If I have to think about the match and science of the picture more than the image I am trying to achieve, then the camera isn’t doing its job. Plus, I have no photography training and all those shutter speed/aperture setting confuse me after a bit. I’m sure I’ll get a handle on those someday.

The thing that I love about your photography is your uncanny ability to represent the quirkiness of the Austin art community. When going out to shoot, what are you inspirations? How do you come up with the locations that you capture?

I may disappoint you or delight you with this answer. I’m always out shooting. When I walk from my car to the office, when I’m driving home, out drinking, playing mini-golf. I don’t divide my time between going out and shooting and just hanging out. There will be times I go out with a specific place in mind, but rarely do I have goals. I work best with spontaneity. I get inspired by the most random things. I may see a parking garage that I can shoot a whole roll on, and then save it for shooting over later. I stopped, twice this week, on my way home from work or a friend’s house. I parked my car in downtown Austin and just started walking. I get to know my city better and walk alleys, roads and inside buildings being renovated. I can fill a whole roll in an hour or two. Parks with playground equipment is fun when shooting with models. You get things to hang off of and everyone livens up a bit in those surroundings.

One of my most favorite sets that you have done was your interpretation of Las Vegas. What was your experience while shooting and the overall goals and intentions you had with your photos?

I got a call from my Dad and he said they were booking a trip and had a free roundtrip flight and a spare bed, If I wanted to come. Most people would think twice about going to Vegas for 3 days and rooming with their parents. All I could think of was Vegas and my LC-A= dancing with each other. I had three goals with Vegas. First, to capture it at a dizzying pace. When I travel, my eyes are assaulted by things I haven’t seen before. Sometimes I have to try harder to find things in Austin that are right under my nose, because I see them every day and now my eye passes over them. Travel awakens my eye at a whole other level. So vacation means shooting from the walk to the airport to the end of my travels. I have a zen like peace in my mind when I shoot like this. Las Vegas was my time to unwind and capture all the dazzling things she could throw at me. Second, I prepared several rolls of textures to take with me. I wanted to double Austin and Vegas. I even shot some money strewn across a black sheet, to double with Vegas, for a themed roll. Third, I wanted to shoot Vegas and bring it back for doubles later. I brought back five rolls of Vegas textures I am still working through.

Overall, I wanted to relax and shoot till I ran out of film. I don’t think my parents really understood that running around and shooting everything in sight was my form of relaxing. I was told I could sit down and hang out for a bit without my cameras, if I wanted to. I wasn’t there to sit and unwind. I was there to explode.  I came away with 450 shots that trip. I liked about 370 of them.

What is your favorite picture?

The inevitable and dangerous question. Picking your favorite. I have one that I always love, every time I see it.

http://bit.ly/du90Sh

I was in Baltimore, MD. On my way to DC to help a friend move back to Austin. Had to catch a train for the last leg. While folks were unloading their bags from the taxi, I saw this huge statue in front of Penn Station. It was in the middle of the round-about. I thought for about 3 sec about how my running over there might delay us and how we were already rushing for the train. Then I ran over to it and snagged 2-3 shots. The last one I saved for doubling with something else, later. They yelled from across the street and I bolted back across. When we walked into the train station I looked around at the columns and design while they were locating the ticket booth. I looked up and my jaw dropped at the sight of the stained glass dome. I set focus, lifted my camera, and snapped the shot. Only afterward did I remember that the statue was on there already. It is a perfect example of forgetting everything and just shooting. It turned out more perfect than if I had tried to get the shot.

Seeing as you have captured cultural polar opposites between Las Vegas and DC, where is your viewfinder set to go on your next big lomography adventure?

I have an ever growing list of places. Most likely, it will be Seattle or San Francisco. I have friends and flickr buddies in both cities and it will make it far more fun and economical. Both places have plenty of eye candy. Seattle requires higher ISO film, though, due to the overcast nature. I want to gather fellow lomographers in either location for a pub crawl one night I’m in either place. There would be nothing more fun than that.

Where is your dream location?

Japan,. 6 months to a year there. I already love the aesthetic of the culture and the oddity of their pop culture is so alien that I might pop before I finish my first roll. I’ve been watching movies from there for years and yearn to be there and capture the feeling they give me. I would love to capture it all with just my LC-A+ and do a book about a Gaijin’s Lomo View of Japan.

If you could sum up your photography philosophy in one sentence, what would it be?

Shoot because you love to and let the pictures sort themselves out.

Cameron is currently showing is work at Flipnotics in Austin until August 25, 2010.

His solo show will be at the Lustre Pearl in Austin, Texas on August 30, 2010 in which he will be releasing his first photo collection book.

If you would like to see more of Cameron Russell’s work, check out his main photography page, CamRussPhoto. You’re in for a treat.

Cameron also has a photography blog, Lomo-Cam, in which he goes into detail regarding specific processes with his lomography.

Main photography page: CamRussPhoto
Blog: Lomo-Cam
Facebook: Cam Russ Photo
Flickr: Lomo-Cam