Lomography Partners: Kadrų Kadras of Vilnius, Lithuania

Come one, come all. Lomography has partners all over the world to help serve your analogue needs. If you're from Lithuania then it's your lucky day! We're featuring our Vilnius-based stockist Marijus and Marija of Kadrų Kadras in today's installment of Lomography Partners.

Can you introduce yourself to the Lomography community?

We are Marijus and Marija. Classmates at first and co-parents now. As analogue photography was a common thing when we grew up, our backgrounds were not a lot different. Together and separately, we were shooting film for a while now and the time has come to do something more about it. As we are both from the IT sector, our days go by in front of a computer—just filled with ones and o’s. Naturally, a need for something creative and hands-on rose inside and the next thing we know, we started our own lab!

We even took this further, as one of our goals was to educate—we started having regular film developing workshops. It’s a really great feeling when people go from asking the simplest questions about film and cameras to getting asked things that require deeper research before answering. But this is what we wanted—to create a community and share our experiences alongside having a lab and a shop.

What does analogue mean to you?

Analogue means slowing down and appreciating the process and not only the result. It also means simplicity. Yeah, it sounds crazy, right? But it’s something that you feel inside when you take a shot on film. You just know it’s gonna be awesome. Now from our experience, it’s not the same with digital cameras. You tend to shoot a hundred pictures and still might feel down when you see the preview on the camera’s screen.

What does Lomography mean to you?

Lomography for us is a new wave film community. With new consumer films being released continuously, it gives the feeling that film will never die. Lomography cameras are a creativity booster. It takes you out of the box when it comes to analogue photography. The articles published on the site introduce creative ways to experiment like film soups, etc.

Why do you choose to work with Lomography?

We love to try new products–be it film, cameras, or scanning accessories. Lomography keeps releasing new goods so that is one of the reasons we choose to work with you. Also, the fact itself that Lomography develops new products is great.

What is your favorite Lomography product and why?

At the moment Metropolis film is one of our top picks. The colors are just the way we love them! LomoChrome Purple film is also a sweet pick. The magic colors that appear when you see the results–it’s just something that even exceeds your expectations.

Are you doing any creative projects right now in the store or personally? Please tell us more about them.

Marijus recently had a great opportunity to get out of his comfort zone and tried shooting maternity portraits. It turned out really well! One of our biggest collabs that we had this summer was with the city-wide festival. We placed film cameras 15 minutes apart (via walking) and anyone passing by had a chance to pick them up and go take pictures. Cameras were divided into themes–all were double exposure themes. After having the films shot, we developed and scanned them overnight then sent them out for printing. The result looked like more than a thousand postcards spread all over the city! You can see the shots here.

What does the future of analogue photography look like to you? How will this impact your shop in the next ten years?

Most likely it will have its ups and downs but as film was kept alive until now, it sure is here to stay! A lot of new people are attracted to analogue photography so we already see lots of new innovations all over the field. Processors, films, cameras, and scanning techniques–it’s all starting to move to this century.

What difficulties did your shop have to face during the lockdowns and what kept you going through these hard times?

As a matter of fact, the lockdown boosted our performance. We started as an online business so we already were a fully functional online shop/lab even before the lockdown. While others tried to adapt, nothing changed on our end. More clients reached out to us and they were happy that they can easily get their films developed without going to an actual lab. The only downside was that we could not host any events or film developing workshops.

Quick Questions

What's the most annoying thing about running an analogue lab?

Explaining to customers that there's nothing we can do if the film was already poorly handled

What's your favorite memory from the lab so far?

Developing slides (E6) for the first time. That batch also included our wedding films!

What's the weirdest thing you have received when developing films?

We received a film to develop which was not rolled back into the canister. It was fully shot and just taken out of the camera without rewinding it back.

Vital Information

Official Name: Kadrų Kadras
Began Accepting Film for Developing: 2019
Address: A. Smetonos g. 5-40201115 Vilnius, Lithuania
Services offered: 35mm, 120, B&W, E6, Hand developed, film and camera sales
Film lab staff: 2

Want to see your favorite store featured in our magazine? Please send us an email at wholesaleinquiries@lomography.com and we will check them out!

written by cheeo on 2021-11-11 in #people #places #partners #lithuania #film-lab #stockists #lomography-partners #kadru-kadras