Interview with photographer Von Vintage by Mark Lobo
Vintage on Vintage. The term used to coin the personal project, Von Vintage, of Melbourne commercial photographer, Mark Lobo. It’s vintage design on vintage cameras.
It all started on a road trip to Tasmania when Mark bought a vintage Box Brownie camera. Mark describes:
“I’ve always loved the way older cameras were designed but was also slightly saddened to think that a lot of these cameras as well as a range of beautiful vintage objects are continuously finding their way into landfill. I decided that I wanted to work on a project that preserved these beautiful vintage aesthetics, both through photography and helping to keep old film cameras alive and in use.”
Mark now has a growing collection of photographs, all shot on film and with no identifiable cue as to when each photo was taken. He has an interesting range of stories for how he found each camera and the location of each shoot. The Von Vintage collection was exhibited late last year, and the prints are available for purchase online.
If you’re a vintage film and photography fan, vist the website and like the Von Vintage Facebook page for the latest updates.
Design Montage featured Mark about his commercial work last year, and you can read the in depth interview with him here. For more insight into the man and process behind Von Vintage, read on for the latest interview with Mark…
The process of capturing vintage on vintage is such an interesting one, tell me a story about who you’ve met through this project…
I’ve met quite a range of people through working on this project. I shoot a bit at antique stores so I’ll often end up in conversations with people who love the same kinds of things that I love to shoot. I’ve even had a few people ask if the camera I was shooting on was for sale!
I’ll also meet people who are keen to give away their old cameras, usually because they understand the value of what can be done with the cameras but aren’t necessarily photographers themselves and want to see them put to good use!
There’s so many beautiful vintage cameras in your collection. Do you own all of these? Or where do you find them?
I’ve bought a few of my cameras off of ebay, markets and antique stores. I also have a friend at a camera club that gives me a heads up whenever he knows of anybody selling or giving away their old cameras. I’ll sometimes borrow other people’s cameras to give them a test run and make sure they work.
After all that though, I always end up coming back to my medium format Hasselblad for shooting. The quality of the image that it creates and the beautiful depth of field I can achieve with it’s Carl Zeiss lens is too great to not be constantly shooting with!
Is your creative process for Von Vintage different to when you work commercially with clients?
This is a great question because it is totally different. With film, the process is almost meditative and much more calming than shooting a fast paced digital commercial job. This is mainly because I’m shooting for myself and there are no clients overlooking me, guiding me or my subject.
With Von Vintage, it’s purely me and I can take my time with it. I feel a lot more connected with the photography when I’m shooting film, primarily because there is a longer and more involved process. I spend time before the shoot buying film and spooling it into the camera.
Then I’ll frame up a shot, take a manual light reading, and shoot two or three frames. I’ll do this 3 more times and it’s time to wind through the film an start another roll. After that, comes driving out to get the film developed and returning a few days later to pick up the negatives.
I like to edit digitally so I usually schedule in a night every few months to do all my scanning. I still have negatives from over a year ago in my queue! I find that this “slowness” helps me with my commercial work though. It’s always good to be a calm photographer even in the most chaotic environments.
I feel like shooting film definitely helps me stay composed and focused on getting a perfect shot when I’m shooting commercially.
What do you enjoy the most about working on Von Vintage?
I love that it forces me to take a step back from my usual style of photography and focus on creating something fresh and totally different.
I also enjoy the feeling of anticipation and excitement after a shoot. Then seeing a shot come out exactly how I thought it would or better, a few weeks later.
What kind of feedback have you had from viewers of your print collection?
I exhibited the work late last year and the response was really positive. It seemed to actually trigger a bit of nostalgia with a quite few people, one person commenting on how they had learned to type on an old typewriter that I had photographed.
It’s great that people feel a connection to the photography and I hope to keep that in mind when shooting in the future.
What’s next for Von Vintage?
I’ve started to focus on getting actual prints onto people’s walls and into a more physical form. As a result of the exhibition late last year, there are now quite a few people who have some beautifully framed Von Vintage prints in their homes.
In the spirit of combining the old and new, I’ve also started to sell the vintage photography prints online. I’m hoping to get to a stage where the project funds itself and would ideally love to be able to afford to spend more time on it!
