Yesterday I was highly productive and finally (finally!) scanned all my Holga negatives into digital photos. It was fun to try to figure out where the pictures were taken since they were all more than 2 years old!
So remember these shots are made with a plastic camera that has a plastic lens. The point is to make them a bit more "artistic" and not perfect. It is good practice for me who is far from perfection, but often futilely strives for it.
My favorite thing to do with my Holga is double expose photos! It is so much fun, but only selectively turns out a nice shot. My roommate in college had a camera that did this once by accident (or she used the film, forgot, and then used it again, we never did figure it out) and I thought the photos were incredible. I dreamed of one day being able to create such amazing images, but at the time I had a no-brainer point and shoot and when I rewound the film, it took it all back in the the tube and there was no hope. You did not even get to choose when you forwarded your film, it just did it for you after each shot. When I finally did find myself with a nice SLR, I became obsessed with perfect photos and forgot all about how cool the double exposure could be.
Then I moved to San Francisco to the heart of hipsterville. And no, I do not categorize myself as such (first, I'm way, way too old, and second, I care way, way too much), but occasionally they start trends that I do find interesting. And then of course, I take them way further than any hipster really intended.
This extremely awesome photo lab here in the city, RayKo Photo Center, had a Holga exhibit during my first few months in the city. The art work there was just incredible. Nothing like what you see below-- these people knew how to hold a camera still and get a beautiful clear image, but still be a Holga photo. They were selling Holgas, and giddy with inspiration, I bought one. Now there is a bowl of film in my refrigerator just like in the old days. But now I take my film to just be developed into negatives (oh wait, I did do that in the old days, when I lived in Kazakhstan) and on very rare occasions I use my semi-fancy scanner to scan the negatives into actual photographs.
And then I present these representations of the past to you. Enjoy!
So remember these shots are made with a plastic camera that has a plastic lens. The point is to make them a bit more "artistic" and not perfect. It is good practice for me who is far from perfection, but often futilely strives for it.
My favorite thing to do with my Holga is double expose photos! It is so much fun, but only selectively turns out a nice shot. My roommate in college had a camera that did this once by accident (or she used the film, forgot, and then used it again, we never did figure it out) and I thought the photos were incredible. I dreamed of one day being able to create such amazing images, but at the time I had a no-brainer point and shoot and when I rewound the film, it took it all back in the the tube and there was no hope. You did not even get to choose when you forwarded your film, it just did it for you after each shot. When I finally did find myself with a nice SLR, I became obsessed with perfect photos and forgot all about how cool the double exposure could be.
Then I moved to San Francisco to the heart of hipsterville. And no, I do not categorize myself as such (first, I'm way, way too old, and second, I care way, way too much), but occasionally they start trends that I do find interesting. And then of course, I take them way further than any hipster really intended.
This extremely awesome photo lab here in the city, RayKo Photo Center, had a Holga exhibit during my first few months in the city. The art work there was just incredible. Nothing like what you see below-- these people knew how to hold a camera still and get a beautiful clear image, but still be a Holga photo. They were selling Holgas, and giddy with inspiration, I bought one. Now there is a bowl of film in my refrigerator just like in the old days. But now I take my film to just be developed into negatives (oh wait, I did do that in the old days, when I lived in Kazakhstan) and on very rare occasions I use my semi-fancy scanner to scan the negatives into actual photographs.
And then I present these representations of the past to you. Enjoy!
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