Photography 2

When I started getting interested in photography two completely different areas intrigued me.  First was the digital which I’m still very much enjoying.  I even got to play with super fancy lenses this weekend while at my parents.  =)  The other area was toy cameras, specifically the Holga. 

There are many different kinds of toy cameras out there each with its own cult following.  They are unpredictable, full of light leaks and other strange affects.  But it’s these affects that make the pictures so cool and unique.  Holga’s pictures were my fave and that’s what sold me on trying this out. 

The Holga is completely plastic, including the lens.  I have to manually crank the film which gives me the opportunity to play with double exposures.  I’ve taped up the film box to avoid over whelming light leaks, but have gotten a few that I love so far.  I’ve also gotten some vignette effects around the photos.  It uses 120mm film which is harder to find, but the prints are 5x5 inches, another touch that I love. 

When I first got the Holga I wanted to test out my patience with a film camera.  It’s a lot different not being able to immediately see your pics.  Although I lucked out and our local camera store develops 120 film in house!  That makes for much quicker turn around time.  I also wanted to just find out if I enjoyed using it.

I love my Holga!  It’s so completely different from the digital.  With the digital I’m border lining overwhelmed with trying to figure out what everything means.  There are so many setting and features which are very cool, but overwhelming.  The holga is a million times simpler.  There are some many forces that are out of my hands.  I find myself thinking more about the composure of the photo and not the speeds, zooms, clicks, etc.  I’ve gotten two rolls of film developed so far and this is what I’ve learned from them. 

The eye hole does not line up with the lens!  This ruined all my close up flower shots.  I found this to be a good thing.  All my favorite pictures were the people pics and the more abstract pictures.  It’s branching me away from my norm and making me think about what else could be cool to shoot at. 

I haven’t learned this lesson the hard way but I can see it happening in the near future….take off the lens cap!  B/c the eye hole doesn’t line up you’d never know it if you left the lens cap on.

Double exposures should be done in lower lighting, other wise the pic gets blown out.

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