Four years ago I was broken by creative disappointments and failures, I'd invested myself unwisely in my creations (more about that in another blog post). I got ill and life was pretty grim. I went to London to visit a friend and I'd been reading about lomo cameras on the web. Walking from my friend's flat in Clerkenwell I came across a lomo shop. I was drawn in and found myself £100 poorer and after a 10 min demonstration by a forceful German woman the prosessor of a camera. The last time I'd used a camera would have been about 20 years before. It was the start of a great big adventure. Not easy I often went to the printer and found that my rolls were blank, or the pictures fuzzy, or someother disaster had befallen them. But I persisted and as it was something I could easily fit into what felt like my blighted life I took my lomo everywhere, on buses, on secret assignments in temp jobs. I finally learned to look and appreciate. Then two years later I migrated to the holga and a whole new adventure started.

However my mastery of the first camera only came from doing it day in and day out learning to be at one with it and learning all its quirks. It wasn't a one shot 'oh I'll try it for a week and if I'm not stunned by the results move onto paper making'. Mastering something takes commitment not necessarily teeth clenching commitment but a willingness to return and load in film and keep going.

Do follow those freakish moments when you feel compelled to do something. We can never tell where they lead us. We learn by going where we have to go.

Now I've got a bit of research I should be doing on google about another fascination which I've been putting off - just going to do that now.