Take a tour of the burgeoning world of plastic cameras and low-tech photography in this fun and funky guide to creating the most artistic pictures of your life! Whether you're an experienced enthusiast or toy camera neophyte, you'll find this guide full of tantalizing tips, fun facts, and absolutely striking photographs taken with the lowest tech tools around. You'll learn how to prep your plastic camera, their advantages and quirks, and what film to feed it. You'll also explore what makes a good subject, vignetting, multiple exposures, panoramas, close-ups, night photography, color, flash, problems and solutions, and so much more. Michelle Bates also takes you from a negative to either prints or pixels so that you can show off your photos and jump on the toy-camera revolution! Contributors include: Michael Ackerman, Thomas Michael Alleman, Erin Antognoli, Jonathan Bailey , James Balog, Michelle Bates, Phil Bebbington, Gyorgy Beck, Susan Bowen, Laura Corley Burlton, David Burnett, Susan Burnstine, Nancy Burson, Perry Dilbeck, Jill Enfield, fotovitamina, Annette Elizabeth Fournet, Brigitte Grignet, Eric Havelock-Bailie, Christopher James, Michael Kenna, Wesley Kennedy, Teru Kuwayama, Louviere & Vanessa, Mary Ann Lynch, Anne Arden McDonald, Ted Orland, Sylvia Plachy, Dan Price, Becky Ramotowski, Nancy Rexroth, Francisco Mata Rosas, Richard Ross, Franco Salmoiraghi, Rosanna Salonia, Jennifer Shaw, Nancy Siesel, Mark Sink, Kurt Smith, Sandy Sorlien, Pauline St. Denis, Harvey Stein, Gordon Stettinius, Ryan Synovec, Rebecca Tolk, Marydorsey Wanless, Shannon Welles, Matthew Yates, Dan Zamudio

The art of film photography using plastic or "toy" cameras is the sensational new trend among camera buffs and hipsters. Featuring a shoot-from-the-hip attitude and a playful retro look, Fantastic Plastic Cameras is the definitive guide to the low-fi phenomenon referred to as Lomography. Inside, photographers will find a roster of forty of the most popular plastic camera models, tips and tricks for shooting with them, and examples of amazing photographs. Perfect for both beginners and die-hard fans, this handy volume is sure to enchant anyone who loves the soft-focus world these cameras capture.

A reliable source of techniques and ideas for the use of alternative and contemporary photographic processes that photographers have come to depend on. Professional photographers and advanced students seeking to increase their skills will discover modern and classic methods of creating and manipulating images.

The camera revolution has begun This hip how-to volume will help lo-fi photographers take their shooting to the next level, be it with Polaroid, Diana, Holga, pinhole camera, or many more beloved analog favorites. In 35 fun and imaginative projects, users will learn dozens of unexpected and beautiful techniques, from cross-, push-, and hand-processing to experimenting with film speeds and film types, bleeding images, and using multiple exposures and lenses. Illustrated with striking shots from lo-fi aficionados and organized by technique, this easy-to-follow guide--with simple step-by-step instructions and handy tips on camera quirks--will inspire plastic camera pros and enthusiastic beginners to point and shoot in a whole new way.

Looking beyond the impact photographs have on the perpetuation and expression of social norms and stereotypes, and the influence of the act of taking a photograph, this new collection brings together international scholars to examine the camera itself as an actor. Bringing the camera back into view, this volume furthers our understanding of how, and in what ways, imaging technology shapes us, our lives, and the representations out of which we fashion knowledge, base our judgments and ultimately act. Through a broad range of case studies, the authors in this collection make the convincing claim that the camera is much more than a mechanical device brought to life by the photographer. This book will be of interest to scholars in photography, visual culture, anthropology and the history of photography.