Purple Passion: First Impressions of the LomoChrome Purple by Social Media Testers

Depending on the ISO setting, the lighting conditions on which the film was used, and even the photographer's mood – you could say that the LomoChrome Purple is truly a lovely film for experiments. Here we have three testers, each with their own unique perspectives, and their visual expressions on purple film.

Pierluigi Cozzula

Pierlugi Cozzula is a musician based in Sardegna, Italy. He's also on Instagram as analog_set, where he uploads his snapshots. He took the LomoChrome Purple film on his journey to Morocco, initially unsure about how he could use it. But upon seeing the Merzouga desert and its dunes and Berbere huts, he was struck with inspiration. For this set, he used a Nikon FM2 and alternated between a Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4 and a classic Nikor 35 / 70mm F3.3. After a careful analysis of the site and of the weather conditions, he decided to expose the film in the middle of its range (250 ISO) because he was afraid of overexposing too much.

"I thought it was a good idea to give a magical touch to a place that has so much to offer. Also, I have never seen the desert, and LomoChrome purple was perfect for those distorted colors with its color shifts. The film is really easy to use – just set the ISO selector on the machine from 100 to 400 and you are ready to shoot, no filter needed! Plus, having such a high range is suitable for all types of situations from dawn to dusk and, why not, even in closed and illuminated places. The feeling you get when you develop what you shot is incredible!"

Cristian Nohpal Tuxpan

Hailing from Tiaxcala, Mexico is Cristian Nohpal Tuxpan, also known on Instagram as tzecmol. For this photo set, he used a Canon A1 on ISO 200, mostly in natural light, and used a Diana F+ Flash for his indoor shots. Among his photos, his favorite is that of the Iztaccíhuatl volcano with double exposure with flashes of light, because he thinks it highlights the mystery that causes a natural scene.

LomoChrome Purple is a film that works with your creativity. Thinking about the possible tones that will be produced causes a lot of curiosity, it is one of the best creative films that we have at our disposal. The development process is the same as a conventional color film, and it responds with good image quality and detail. Photographing elements that have details to highlight the effect of this film, I liked working with natural light. Have fun taking the pictures and take out the creative side we have.

Willem van den Heever

Filmmaker/photographer WillemDafilm is from Cape Town, South Africa. He is a self-described adventurer and explorer at heart, with a great passion for art, music, and traveling. He started filmmaking while still in high school and finished a degree in Film Arts at The Open Window Institute of Film Arts in Centurion,
Pretoria, After graduation he spent half a year hiking through untamed wilderness, which was documented on film. Since then, he's been in freelance documentary filmmaking. When he tested the LomoChrome Purple, he used a Nikon FM with a 35 mm and 50 mm lens. He shot in 200 ISO in daylight and pushed it to 400 ISO at night. Here are his thoughts and experience using the LomoChrome Purple.

To be completely honest, I was never really excited about LomoChrome purple or any film shifting colors a lot. Maybe it’s got something to do with my perfectionistic/OCD personality and that I like to keep things as natural as possible. But after I loaded the film, the first thing I picked up was that it didn’t have a set film speed which led me to browsing the web and reading up on the film a bit, which actually started making me excited to start experimenting with it. I then realized that despite the colors in daylight aren’t my favorite; there’s a whole new world to it when using it to shoot at night or with artificial light (which ended up being my favorite shots as well). This later shifted my whole approach to shooting with the film and made me actually embrace its beauty in its weirdness. Once done shooting came the real excitement I haven’t felt in a while; the excitement of getting results back from shooting with a film you’ve never shot with before.

For Willem, it is the film's unique color palette and surreal look, further enhances his use of chiaroscuro in his photographs which allowed the LomoChrome Purple film to fall in love with shooting analogue.

There were weird color shifts, artifacts, textures and grain - everything I needed to see again on a negative to fall in love with film as an art form again, and one of the reasons I started shooting on film years ago in the first place. I’ve always wished I could paint like the greats, and create art in a more traditional form, but seeing that it was never one of my talents I started approaching film photography in the same way. To use light as my paintbrush and try and create art on film the same way you would with paint and a canvas and put it in the same light as any other great painting. With our oversaturated social media world of endless timelines it’s easy to lose track of this initial focus. But experimenting with films like the LomoChrome Purple and seeing the results brought that focus back again!

When we asked him what advice he would give future LomoChrome Purple users, this is what he had to say:

Don’t be scared to experiment with it under different light sources or at night. One thing I’ll do differently in the future is exam colors more, do some research and see how colors change so you can plan accordingly. Even though most of the night shots at 400 ISO still came out, it was just a tiny bit underexposed for me and I’ll say play it safe and keep it at a standard of 200. And then lastly, be open to unexpected surprises in the results, that’s part of Lomography and shooting on film. There’s always beauty in the imperfection to be found.

We would like to thank our LomoChrome Purple testers for their lovely photos and for sharing their unique experiences with this film. Stay tuned for our next batch of first impressions soon!

2019-12-05