2 posts tagged “holga”
For some time, I have subscribed to Google for news alerts that search for news items that contain words like Holga, or places like Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Today, I received an email about a wonderful Holga article by Christopher T. Assaf who writes a blog for the Baltimore Sun. It's good because he outlines how various camera bodies and films have been used by photojournalists. He begins with 35mm, which was used the 70s through 90s, which then migrated to digital. While he writes about camera usage as linear, it may actually be more circular however, because journalists now also utilize the older and slower (think slow food movement) medium format (120) film cameras such as Speed Graphics (think Jimmy Olsen), Mamiyas, and Hasselblads (not to mention Rollei twin lens cameras.)
But the impetus is not only camera and film types, but a change from quick, perfect digital to slow, imperfect and surprising cameras such as "crap" plastic Holgas. To do this, Assaf documents his adventures shooting with a Holga for The Seven Wonders of Maryland project, and goes on to provide many good examples of what this $20 wonder can achieve, or not--he even supplies those which are not so successful (or at least adjust the scan's gamma levels.) Very nice.
Above all, Assaf's article is a big yes for medium format, particularly Holgas. And we who use Holgas and other toys or antique cameras, like to use crap, unstable, leaky, or just plain old cameras. We love not knowing how the image will develop. I know I particularly like how I must quickly figure out how many feet I am from the subject (is it 23 feet or infinity?) and what the exposure should be. Using Holga visual parlance I estimate and observe--is it cloudy or sunshiny? Is it a mountain, group, or individual shot? We think fast, or not, and switch the little plastic switch to select a low light or bright exposure. It's either or, close, far, or more far away. They work or not. That's just fine for me, and now just fine for Christopher T. Assaf.
Already it is 2007 on the right coast, while here it is 10:39 p.m. 2006 and counting.
While organizing my music and preparing for transfer to my anniversary present from MJ (an Ipod Shuffle,) I found this list on Wired of their Top Ten Gadgets that “changed the world.” After reading the entry for the Kodak Brownie film camera, I thought I would weigh-in on the ongoing discussion of film versus digital. For me, I hope film never goes away. However, digital point and shoots are most likely the past's Brownie, which puts one more nail in the coffin for film.
Well, for the so-called “first world” maybe, but for the emergent world, not so much. However, I felt Null’s rhetoric was just a little too strong for me, especially about the Kodak Brownie. Although correct in its inclusion, I found him too flip in the pronouncement that “film is dead.”
Again, that idiotic "film is dead" aphorism. Get a clue, film will not die as
As for digital, how long can those bits and bytes
of information keep? On CD? DVD? How long will that
new digital Rebel last? How
long.
Who cares anyway? It’s either electronic gadget obsolescence in 9 months, or a future of failed or outdated memory storage to come. Strange that something manufactured and developed eons ago still works.
Face it, both can and will survive together, much to the consternation or cooperation of both parties.
