Holga Realizations

For those not combing every post on this blog and committing them all to memory, a Holga is a type of cheaply made Chinese camera that uses 120 roll-film (as opposed to the usual film, 35mm) that I wrote about in my Camera Follies post. The 120 film is quite interesting and fun to play with, with huge negatives, bigger even than photos from those photo-booths they have at carnivals and weddings nowadays.

I'm coming to realize some things since beginning to "enjoy" a new hobby. I've ridden around on my bicycle to find cool places in the vicinity of our apartment and snap 120 film pictures of them. Because of the huge size of the negative, an image can be blown up to almost 30" x 30" square while retaining full (softish) clarity. That's quite remarkable, and one of the reasons I wanted to find those beautiful scenes that Corrie's so good at making happen.

I've done the same thing plenty of times with my point-and-shoot Cannon. The beautiful thing about digital media is how easy it is to take any number of pictures...the sheer volume is where digital wins out.

Each roll of 120 film will give me 12 exposures. 120 film, in another quirk of the media, is not in a cartridge, so you really have to load it and unload it in a darkened room (I use the can), and always be careful you keep the wound spool of 12 possibles treasures safe and pocketed, or covered in some other way.

Those quirks are put of the fun, or maybe, "fun".

So, when I go out with my digi and take pictures from my bike (mainly for this site) I end up taking sometimes seventy shots, sometimes more than a hundred, sometimes less than ten, but that would be a quick trip. Seventy-five pictures with my digital camera might give the four I use on a post, and only two of those I may be proud of. Two awesome pictures from six dozen. That's how that works.

When working with only twelve chances, framing the picture becomes so important. Another kinda cool thing that turns infuriating later is not really knowing what you've got until it's developed.

And then developing! Criminy. A Holga camera is not expensive--around thirty bucks. Five-roll packs of color 120 film is usually under twenty bucks, so, the enthusiast hobby isn't so cheap, but compared to any of the three digital cameras I'm looking at right now, the hobby's affordable. Developing one roll into negatives and a contact sheet, just so you can see what you've got out of those twelve chances, runs just under twenty bucks. Prints aren't included yet.

For me, the camera and film were gifts, so I'm really just deciding what to shoot and then developing it, or, better yet, letting Corrie decide what to shoot, and then framing a large print of it and putting it up on the wall.

So, now, my realization is the same as any actual photographer, namely: Damn, film camera-ing can be cool, but it can also be a bitch.

I tried to make cool dynamic pictures on my latest roll, asking myself before each picture How would Corrie frame this, and still ended up with one lens-cap on exposure (what a stupid waste), eight or nine rather pedestrian pictures, and two or three maybe-okay ones.

At least I'm having fun, right?