Then I did my usual thing of waiting ages between taking the pics and getting them processed. Bored of waiting I went into the local snappy snaps style place and asked if they could process 120 film, and was assured they could.

Quite why, in that case, all the photos came out with strange lines and artefacts on them I have no idea – but I probably won’t use that particular place again…

So without further ado and without me bleating on pointlessly, here are them pictures.

I’ve complained in the past about the delay in getting photos from my Holga developed on these very pages, and this was no exception. I took these ages ago, and had forgotten that I took them, so when this roll showed up along with the six or seven others from Cornwall I did a little wee wee.

I just love Fuji Provia slide film, look at them colours, just look at them with your eyes.

This couple were living the life, enjoying the sun in their Bournemouth sea front beach hut. It was hard not to be jealous, but since I’m a long way off retirement I’ll just have to settle for a handful of weeks off work each year.

It was only April but the beach was packed, with everyone enjoying the good weather.

The Pier at Bournemouth. Not on fire.

So that’s all for the Holga photos from Bournemouth. Now time for a moan. I got a new PC recently, with Vista x64 loaded on it. Since it’s been available for several years now, I stupidly assumed peripheral makers would have software that works. But oh no, of course they don’t so Epson can kiss my stinky bum because I now can’t use my scanner with my PC. As a result I had to hook it up to my laptop which was both annoying and also very very annoying.

I had to wait for my blood pressure to drop before scanning in the rest of my slides. Don’t panic though, I’ll be back with more photos of beaches in Cornwall before you can say “oh crap not again”.

]]> http://www.bendobson.co.uk/2009/06/15/the-bourne-mouth-identity/feed/ 3 http://www.bendobson.co.uk/2009/03/24/having-a-bath/ http://www.bendobson.co.uk/2009/03/24/having-a-bath/#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:54:25 +0000 Ben http://www.bendobson.co.uk/blog/?p=106 So I’ve treated the wife to a day trip to bath for her 30th Birthday, and no that isn’t all I did. Bath is fun, we had a good wander around and stopped in a few pubs for beers and I took a few photos with my Holga before we went for a meal at the Hole in the Wall which isn’t a dodgy saturday night TV show with Dale Winton but rather is a nice little restaurant which serves yummy food.

Bring on the wall!

Anyway onto the photos – of two rolls I was unhappy with virtually all the results. The reason for this was that I tried to be clever and deliberately over-expose all the images. In practice what I acheived was washing them out almost completely except in about 1 case. Never mind, lesson learnt, don’t try to use bulb mode on ISO400 film in daylight.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Pulteny Bridge, Bath
Fuji Provia 400

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Pulteny Weir, Bath
Fuji Provia 400
Manaul exposure of approx 1/3rd of a second

Also on the roll when I got it developed was this one. I’m not sure what I did but I vaguely recall putting it in bulb mode and waving it around. I like it!

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Abstract
Fuji Provia 400
Manual exposure of unknown length.

That’s all for now – BYE!

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:

Holga

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

Holga

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

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Trafalgar Square, 11th October 2008
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!

Holga

Holga 120 CFN
South Kensington, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
John Madejski Garden, V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
South Kensington Tube Station, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Covent Garden
Kodak Portra 400

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.

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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Carters Steam Fair
Fuji Provia 400

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Carters Steam Fair
Fuji Provia 400

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

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Carters Steam Fair
Fuji Provia 400
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!

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!

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?

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!

Problem was though, with 5 rolls of 12 exposures, I had a lot of scanning to do. It took me all day Sunday to scan in the slides, and I was happy enough with a few of them. Most of the shots were taken in Venice which I’ll post up seperately once I’ve sorted out the ones I like.

I am apparently unable to go more than 5 minutes without taking a photograph of Wilf, so it’s no surprise to see this one, taken a few weeks back when I forced him into a T-shirt to pose for pictures. This was shot on Fuji Provia 400 in my studio

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Wilf do bad things
Fuji Velvia 50

This next picture was taken in my back garden when my cherry tree was in full bloom, and we had a rare day of blue sky. I wanted to see how the exposure would come out when set to “sunny mode” and shot on 400iso film. I struggle to see how you could ever go below 100iso film even on a very sunny day, which renders my 5 rolls of 50iso Fuji Velvia a bit worthless.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Cherry Blossom
Fuji Velvia 50
More lessons learnt, I feel like I’ve got the hang of the Holga a bit now!