My first Holga experience. Hey Mikey, I think he likes it.

Film will always be king, absolutely. Everyone used to shoot 35mm and it was great. Because I'm a lame photographer I felt like I needed another challenge, I decided to have some fun with film and bought a Holga to see what all the fuss is about.

Holgas are medium format toy cameras and you can buy one off eBay for about $40. Because it's a crappy plastic toy of the way they're made, every one is unique and itgives each picture it takes some of its unique flavor. Any by unique flavor I mean pretty random results, which is why people love them. That's what mine looks like.

Of course not everyone is down with this kind of thing - you can be a pixel counter or a stiff ass for sharpness, but I like the fun and games of the organic pictures they take.

So I took a couple of pictures, developed the film and it turns out that Holga's are pretty swell. I have some pics taped around my monitor, my sister has some stuck in her mirror and the rest are long gone. They're totally wacky and one offs and I think people love the fact that you get a REAL photo to hang on to! Holgas are fun!

On the down side, scanning a copy for myself turned out to be a real pain...and even worse there's TONS OF DUST all over the pics because my scanner is a Dinosaur. That's exactly why I hate scanning pictures, but I thought I'd do it for the Holga shots since I like them so much.


While these may not seem like anything to phone home about for you, I like them just fine.

People say don't even develop your first roll because they'll probably be crap, but wen't ahead and did them all without knowing what they'd look like. Of the 4 rolls I got developed 10 of the exposures turned out to be duds. It was probably my fault the camera, but anyway, don't let the scans fool you the pictures came out clearly. The only thing I'm not digging is the novelty multi color flash (red, white, blue, yellow). Just use white, the other ones are crap. And you know what they say, knowing is half the battle.

Anyway, while its super fun I won't completely give up digital any time soon, but you can bet your ass I'm gonna bust out the Holga when I can...or until something else I think is cool catches my eye.