It’s silly season once again and I’ve been busy shooting events and Christmas debauchery parties, so apologies for the brief hiatus.

I’m also lining up more model shoots to increase my work in the air-kissed and air-brushed walk-in wardrobe of fashion – although I must stress that I don’t use Photoshop and have quite strong reservations about entering the whole multi-layered realm of post-production. Well, until now.

You see, I’ve always positioned myself as something of a purist; wanting to get the perfect shot straight out of the camera with very little editing in Aperture 2 apart from the “accepted” level adjustments to contrast, exposure, brightness and saturation, and a bit of cropping here and there. I like to know I’ve used my knowledge and experience to get the best from the camera rather than relying on software to save me. Photographers the world over argue and protest the pros and cons and rights and wrongs of post-production. Should a photo be as the eye sees it or as the photographer perceives it? Is it documentary or art? And with the amount of modes and variable settings available via a digital camera’s menus, is that not a form of pre-post-production? The debates rage on and everyone gets their rolls of film in a twist (well the purists do – digital photogs overheat their memory cards).

Anyway, yesterday was the first Sunday of summer in Australia and it was a scorcher. Bondi Beach was packed (and so was the Beach Road Hotel for the Miss Bondi competition) and I felt the need to avoid all of it and make use of the weather for a stroll with the 5D2.

But where to go? It was midday and the sky was blue and clear so completely the wrong time for a dramatic landscape, the beach was packed so seascapes were out, spring blooms were wilting in the heat so flora was a no-go, plus I couldn’t think of anywhere local I hadn’t been to recently. I really needed some inspiration.

And then I had an idea. I’ve been seeing a lot of photos taken with the cheap but chic Lomo plastic cameras from Russia, such as the popular Holga model. The randomness of the results you get from their somewhat haphazard construction has become uber cool and now demand has driven quite a revival. Sales of Lomos are going through the roof and there are now several iPhone apps available that will reproduce the same retro, vignetted, saturated quality associated with these essentially toy cameras. I’ve been thinking about buying a Lomo and have had a few looks at the Lomography website to check out the quite vast range of models available.

But did I need to buy one or could I replicate the look with Aperture? Ooh controversial! Did I really think that? Did I not want a Lomo for the joy of playing about with a cheap film camera and waiting excitedly to see what comes back from the darkroom? Well, yes, but I didn’t have a Lomo yet to play with and I wanted to get out in the sun so Aperture was going to have to do.

So off I went for a few hours of visualising everything with retro eyes. It was actually quite fun and did make me look at very familiar locations in a new light. This old car in front of a house would not have made me bat an eyelid if I was looking for “normal” images but it screamed out to me as vintage Australiana, so I took the shot and pushed a few sliders to the limit in post-production. What do you think?

I also found the great petrol pump that is featured as the opening image.

I’m happy with this little project I gave myself and look forward to taking more shots with a view to manipulating them. Will this turn me into a Photoshop fiend? Well, I’m still to be totally convinced I need that much post-processing power, but with a fashion career in the back of my mind sometimes you have to look to the future. Or is that the past?