okay.. so the current list of cameras is still increasing but at least it’s divided up. I have three sections Modern (film and digital), vintage (anything pre-70s or no longer in manufacteur) and toy (cardboard, plastic, bought for fun or build-it-yourself).
Todays camera: the Holga.
This camera is a pretty basic piece of equipment. it’s made of plastic, it comes with a plastic or glass lens (get the plastic one for softer photos). You can also get a whole range of coloured or shaped filters for added effects.
Why use a Holga: with the proliferation of digital cameras there has been a sentimental backwash towards film. No more so than the Holga as it not only uses film but used in it’s most basic form almost garuntees a bad photo.
hang on a sec? a bad photo? what? why??
well.. digital photos are almost perfect (technically speaking) you can instantly delete anything that’s blurred or comes out badly in any way. whereas with the Holga you can’t be sure what you might get and if you remove the inner shield you get light leak and some nice vinyetting on the photos. For some people it’s to give ‘heart’ back into the photos. For me it puts back the giddy antisipaction of waiting a week for the photos and discovering what you may have.
something I also love about the Holga is the fact that it uses 120 film (the same type as some vintage cameras) and gives square photographs. You can get 12 shots as standard or with a adapting mask you can get 16 slightly smaller ones.
If you use a nice colour film you can get an almost hyper-real other worldly feel to the photos. In short it’s for fun. It’s a toy. It’s the camera equivelant of just throwing paint on a canvas and getting mucky with colours 🙂
you can buy them online via lomography.com, in templebar through urban outfitters (bit over priced though) or on wexford street, Dublin in Gunns camera shop.
camera obsessa 