The arrival: HOLGA 120GN

The Holga has taken the moment for now. Everything about it has been awkwardly strange or putting it simply, 'off'. From getting it shipped to the right address to everyone's opinion on me owning one, its just been different. Not to mention the amount of attention it's attracted on shooting... From perfect strangers. They seemed to find everything about it weird. Its looks off, the film is unusually large and it seems like the wrong camera to be specialized in anyway (huh... That's what they think!! :D). For me, the Holga is a getaway. There's no way the plastic over-priced US$27.00 camera will have any kind of monetary return in the near future. If anything, the shear cost of medium format film is somewhat unjustifiable if I were to look at it in a purely business sense. That said, I think that's the point of the whole purchase. The benefits of this purchase are for me and me alone... It will be a while before I begin to get something that is even close to being marketable.

The journey to get the Holga:
I'm not sure my bank really considers me a worthy client in anyway. I'm almost always putting in money and emptying out my bank account (Thanks to Photography). Sure I sign up for a few of their insurance policies as a favour to the bank to keep things moving forward but if there's anything that the banks got me on its all the over-charges that I seem to look past. As a matter of fact, I happen to be such a good customer that they keep calling me back to sign up for another one of their plans. Those bastards. I just saved their number and keep rejecting it! :)

Anyways, the Holga's purchase is yet another one of the many interactions between paypal and my bank account. Apparently, tellers keep a a sheet of paper to tally on how many customers show up with a PAYPAL line on their bank records. Its some kind of competition to bring some excitement in one of the world's most boring jobs. So that's the case with CIBC tellers in Vancouver (according to a friend thats a feared and double-time champion of PAYPAL tally wars). But I'd like to believe that the same trend has extended across Canada to Montreal thanks to the difference in treatment in the months that I actually make a purchase on ebay.

So sure enough, this purchase was made and thanks to the ridiculousness of the Canadian dollar's weakness, I ended up paying CAD$40 for this piece of plastic has a pretty high probability of not working in the first place. Also noteworthy is that I purchased the camera from Hong Kong. In the past, I've purchased batteries, a compass, watch, a bicycle distance recorder, another camera, and a studio flash plug adapter... All these have one thing in common: I never use them. The adapter doesn't work, the watch broke, the rest don't ask... Even the wooden camera that is in top notch condition is a fair bit of a push to use. So naturally I wasn't expecting anything extraordinary from this purchase. If anything, I am more than hoping that it will be a good one. Though in the case of a Holga, one who really understands pop culture would ask me what exactly I meant by that... Good question!

Clearing things up: For one, I didn't buy this camera because of the light leaks or because I thought US$27.00 was the best deal in the market. I bought it because I wanted to explore the world of medium format and use a camera that doesn't require me to sit by a tripod and do my homework while the picture is being taken. Also because of the severe constraints. One often uses aperture priority or shutter priority or goes all out manual. How about film-speed priority? Yes, there are several constraints that the photographer has to deal with:

1) Only two aperture settings: f/8 and f/11

2) One shutter setting: 1/125s
and the focusing takes a trial and error approach for the inexperienced. And before I forget: The absolute horse-shit lens... I actually bought the G-series (glass) lens which is apparently 'better'. Holga have their own definition for the word 'better'.

3)There is no preview of Depth of field which means you have to guess it. There is a guide though. It shows one person for 1m, 3 for 3m several for 6m and a mountain for 10m-infinity.

4)The view finder is very basic and doesn't account for how wide the lens actually is. Holga say their lens is 60mm(ish)... Ummm.. Sure... You just have to guess whats what and take the damn photo.

5)You realise how much the shutter sound contributes to the feel of photography when you, well, don't have a shutter sound...I went through an entire roll of film without knowing if I even exposed a single shot while the actual art of capturing the image was a serious anti-climax. Oh well, turns out I did manage to expose the film and work out the focusing.





Not bad if you ask me. Work on them include exposure, curves, and white balance. For the first one, I reduced purple saturation as I found purple snow quite funny...

All said, such is my experience thus far with the HOLGA. I hope to one day manage to produce pretty decent images with it as I understand it better and better. One of several adventures that I will take in this beautiful world of photography, one that I will be certain to share with you all.