I must admit I have a love / hate relationship with Lomography though it often seems more hate then love. While I like that they are encouraging a great hobby I find they often do it in such an irritating way that I think it is doing a disservice to photography. In anycase, here's my thoughts on where I'd like to see them go with their business.
I don’t have much interest in many of their current products, I wouldn’t mind some improvements to their Lomokino, as Francois and Jake have mentioned. Being able to do bulk rolls or being able to use 16mm or some flavour of 8mm would be nice. If we go in the digital realm, I’d like to see something either absolutely weird – say like some of the strange digital cameras they make in Japan – or something along the lines of these:
http://hayesurban.com/current-projects/2012/3/14/digital-super-8.htmlhttp://re35.net/In terms of film, other than being honest about what film is under their branded labels, I’d like to see them do what Film Photography Project does (
http://filmphotographyproject.com/store) or Lance at Labeauratoire (
http://www.labeauratoire.com/film/index.html ). Offer rare film, expired but interesting, rolled and ready for use in cassettes or, if there is enough of it, sold in 100ft lengths so you can roll your own. Sell them as limited editions but ideally not rebrand the film.
Another thought I had was, and I know they sort of do this now but it seems they do it in a half-hearted way, to act as a one stop place for ALL available film currently on the market. If not all available film – maybe a better curated approach by consistently offering product that is difficult to find and not offered by any of the larger online retailers. Again I know they do this somewhat but if they could do it more robustly I think it could be good - so if I wanted some 127 film, Impossible film, something from ORWO, Lucky film from China, 100 ft of Polypan, 110 film from Japan, & Washi 120 film – I could go to their website and order them all up. That would completely dovetail into their current business model and shouldn't be much of a stretch for them.
If I really dream how about resurrecting some beloved types of film from yesteryear – maybe something from Kodak or Eastern Europe. I’d love to see 126 resurrected whether it was in some kind of DIY 126 cart with an instapak as James described or actual new cartridges. Or, and I know I'm really dreaming here, some kind of Kodachrome analogue.
