In profile: Robin Sprong

PHOTOS: Michael Le Grange | WORDS: Mirelle Leyden

This photographer and owner of the Exposure Gallery in Woodstock takes a highly innovative approach to his photographic artworks.

While Robin says he felt the need for a creative outlet from a young age, it took a process of trial and error for him to find the right field. This, and the fact that he was good at everything he tried – from advertising to fashion design – made his creative journey an interesting one.

But, as with most great things in life, he stumbled upon his destiny when he was least expecting it. ‘A friend came back from overseas with a Lomo camera. It was love at first sight and I’ve been hooked ever since,’ recalls Robin.

In 1982 two Russians came across a Japanese mini-camera with a sharp glass lens, extreme light sensitivity and a robust casing. They realised the superior nature and potential of this strange item, gave immediate orders to copy and improve the design, and so began the life of the Lomo.

The art of lomography came so naturally to Robin that after experimenting for a few months, he decided to enter the Tokyo Lomolimpics 2000, where he finished in third place. ‘Shooting with a Lomo camera adds an entirely new dimension to the art of photography,’ he says. ‘The moody ambience and raw reality that it captures on film is visceral and almost tangible.’

Although he has dabbled with more run-of-mill cameras such as the Hasselblad and Horseman, he holds fast that the Lomo is still his first love. Exposure Gallery is also the sole distributor of Lomo cameras in South Africa.

Because Robin is such a creative genius, restricting his photographs to frames on a wall is out of the question. ‘Photography must be relevant, which is why I wanted to include it in interiors on a larger scale – and you don’t get much larger than a wall completely covered from corner to corner in photographic art,’ says Robin.

His printed wallpaper is currently gracing the walls of several Cape Town interiors: Mandela-Rhodes Place, Monkey Films and Fluid Architecture are but a few. He also prints on glass, wood and plastic, and decorates furniture accessories.

‘The art of photography is so vast in creative possibilities that it can either be used as a tool to create the final product, or it can be the final product itself.’

• Exposure Gallery: 021 447 4124, www.robinsprong.co.za