I mentioned in my last entry that I took all my camera gear to London, but then spent the entire time shooting with my Holga. Four rolls of film came back from Peak last week and I started the long process of scanning.

Before I loaded the first film in London, I removed the 6×6 mask from the camera. I wanted to know if it would get me slightly less uniform light fall off at the edges of the image and it did that. It’s also however given me a massive light leak as shown in most of these photos. I’m still undecided on how I feel about that but I think I like it.

Obligatory tourist shots of Trafalgar Square:

Trafalgar Square, 10th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

Trafalgar Square, 10th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

Trafalgar Square, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

On the way to the V&A we got off at South Kensington station, and wandered the rest of the way in the sunshine, after I pressed my face up against the glass of the Lamborghini London showroom!

South Kensington, 11th October 2008
Holga 120 CFN
Fuji Provia 400

As we walked round the Victoria and Albert museum I had visions of some amazing series of images called “The V&A from the hip” but what happened was virtually every single shot was underexposed to the point of being unusuable. Ho hum.

Still, using a statue as a makeshift tripod (no tripods allowed in the V&A) I managed this one with a manual (approximate) 3 second exposure.

V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400
Manual 3 second exposure on bulb mode

Outside was a different story, as I shot off a couple of frames in the John Madejski Garden. I then decided I’d try once more at a panoramic shot with the Holga. This failed miserably last time I tried it, but I sat there working it all out first, then had a crack. Click to re-bigulate this.

John Madejski Garden, V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

I loaded some colour negative film into the camera for the last roll, to give myself a break from all the E6 slide film I’ve been using recently. I’m not sure what this is supposed to be though.

South Kensington Tube Station, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Kodak Portra 400

On the final day in London I had a couple of frames to finish off the film so as we walked to the tube to head back to Paddington I shot off the last few.

The colours from the Kodak Portra just look flat and lifeless after the Provia. As the Provia was about 5 years out of date and the Portra was brand new, it doesn’t say much for the Kodak film. Luckily I still have 20 or so rolls of Fuji E6 film to work my way through.

Following my disasterous last effort with the holga, I decided to throw a couple more rolls through it to see what would happen. This co-incided with going to Carter’s Steam Fair which was visiting our town at the time.

If you don’t know what a Holga is, it’s basically a camera made of plastic. How exciting! If you don’t know what a steam fair is, it’s basically a fair, made of steam, oh wait…

All three of these photos were taken on Fuji Provia 400ISO, with the Holga set on it’s highly technical “cloudy” setting.

Rosie.

Panning with a Holga, I never thought it would work but it did!

Look at that piggy! Oink!

It’s now been just under a year since I got the Holga. In that year I’ve put through about 15 or 20 rolls of 120 film of varying types and vintages. A lot of people dislike the vignetting and out of focus areas that you get with a Holga, not to mention the light leaks. I’m the opposite, and infact that’s probably the only complaint I have with my copy, it doesn’t vignette enough, it doesn’t leak enough light, and the focus is too consistent across the frame.

I’m considering beating it up a bit to see if that makes a difference! I’ve seen various cheats such as deliberately unwinding the film a bit once it’s finished and on the roll, so that’s one option to fix the light leaks. I suppose I could smear some grease on the lens as well!

All in all my love affair with the Holga continues, and while things could be better, I’m not looking for a divorce yet!

A few weeks ago I photographed Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier as it was destroyed by fire. At the time I fired off a roll of Fuji Provia 400 film through my Holga to see what I results I might get and how these would differ from my D200 shots.

This turns out to have been a perfect example of almost everything it is possible to get wrong with a Holga, so what better way to deal with my failure than by putting it on the internet for all to see?

Error 1.) Leaving the camera in “bulb” mode and over exposing the first two frames. oops.

Error 2.) Trying to do a panoramic with a Holga but not advancing the film enough or moving the camera enough. oops.

Error 3.) Not securing the back of the camera allowing it to open and expose the film and ruin it. oops

Error 4.) Assuming the whole film was ruined when in fact I only needed to advance it 2 frames and could easily have used the rest. oops.

The only thing I didn’t get wrong was I managed to remember to set the focus correctly. So, one full roll of film, and processing costs, and all I have to show for it is one frame of the pier burning, which isn’t even that good anway. Curses!

The next two rolls I shot with the Holga were processed at the same time and have all come out great. I blame my pier fire errors on the fact that it was early in the morning and I was still half asleep!

One of the problems with shooting film is the lag between taking the photos, getting them developed, and getting them back. This is made worse by the fact that no lab in my area can process E6 film, and I’ve got 40 rolls of E6 film to work through…

So my films now go off to Peak Imaging, where I pay through the nose and don’t have any choice in the matter. The cost is about 50% higher than my local lab once you factor in postage, but as I said my local lab doesn’t process E6 so it’s moot.

In this case, Volksfest took place about 4 weeks ago, and I’m only just getting these scanned in. I took advantage of the fact it was a sunny day and put through a couple of rolls of Velvia slide film. On the “cloudy” setting (good old holga) it was just about ok at the ISO50 rating of Velvia, so I’m happy enough that it can be used in bright sunshine.

The problem with going to events like Volksfest is that you get sucked into the whole scene. I now desperately want a Beetle whilst my wife Abby is telling me we need a camper van.

Much as I’d love either I also like being able to afford to eat, and since my mechanical skills start and end with turning it off and on again or hitting it with a hammer, I think it’s best I stick with more modern metal!

I did fire off a fair few frames with my D200, but one car show is much like another and I didn’t really get any shots I liked. At least with the holga it brings something a bit interesting to the image.

In unrelated news, I’ve not only updated our business website over at DnL but just yesterday finished our latest client site, for Jennifer Sinclair, photographer. Who’s next?

Today I finally completed scanning, rotating, cropping and resizing my Holga 120 scans from my recent trip to Venice. Scan, crop, rotate, repeat - how exciting! Through some apparently odd quirk of my current aesthetic sensibilities, I appear to be happier with these than with most of the ones I got from my Nikon D200.

One of the philosophies of shooting with a Holga is that you should “shoot from the hip”. I embraced this when I was in Venice by doing exactly that, with mixed results. It’s fairly obvious which of these I fired off without even composing at all with the viewfinder, and which of them I took a bit more time over.

I love the colour and saturation that these have, much more than the digital images of the same subjects. Some of that is due I think to the fact it’s shot with film, although some of it may be down to my scanner as well. I also like the dreamlike quality you can get with a Holga. This is a clever way of pretending that your out of focus image is supposed to look like that. For these Venetian scenes it works pretty well.

All of these were shot on 5 year out of date Fuji Provia 400. Because the Holga doesn’t offer much control over exposure with just two aperture settings available, all have had only slight tweaks to levels to correct any under/over exposure. Enjoy!

So where does this leave me with the Holga? I still have 20 odd rolls of film to shoot, although I suspect the rolls of Velvia 50ISO aren’t much use to me. I think I now need to start being more adventurous, because as I become more adept at getting shots that are in focus, I think I lose some of the qualities that a Holga brings to an image. Next time I use it I plan to go crazy!