In case you already forgot from previous posts, the Diana F+ is the name of the camera that’s kinda like the Holga. It survived my Holga… It’s a film camera… Just…
Forget it, here’s some random snapshots 
This HAS to have been a lab accident. I swear I didn’t shoot this lightning looking thing:
More to come soon. I’m working on catching up on the wedding sneak previews… I’ve been falling behind. It’s wedding season so yeah…
Like a good friend of mine would say;
Please hold!
Here’s some random Diana F+ (same as a Holga) shots from my most recent roll. A bit disappointing if I’m honest…
So last week, I finally put my Holga through its paces with extensive shooting in San Francisco, and it being a Holga, it decides to break, so a good portion of my prints are in bad shape from the negatives being damaged…
Oh wait…
Did I forget to mention a week-long trip to San Francisco?
I can’t say exactly why I’ve kept it such a secret from everyone, but I really went out of my way to do exactly that. Just needed a little privacy I guess. Sometimes, I like the idea of disappearing into oblivion without anyone knowing my whereabouts. Nobody but a handful of my closest friends and family had a clue until the news of my being there finally spilled out on my facebook page the day I was coming home.
If you’ve read my last post about San Francisco, you’ll know there was a reason I chose San Francisco as a destination. While there, I knew I wanted a distinctly non-touristic approach to my visit. As much so as I could manage.
So I spent most of my time wandering. Getting to know the public transit system, the locals (including the “weirdos”), the food, the beach, the piers, the micro-climates, the views, the architecture, the quiet spots, the busy ones, and on and on. I had no plan when I headed that way. My plan was to come up with one on the fly and feel the city rather than just visit it.
This is very different for me. I generally feel much more comfortable with a plan whenever I’m doing something new.
But as with anything in life, force yourself outside of your comfort zone and wonderful things happen.
So now that I’ve experienced it, would I live in San Francisco?
Yes.
In a heartbeat.
Am I going to?
Probably not. I’ll explain later.
Here’s some of the Holga shots I liked. They’re not necessarily in chronological order. I arranged them in the way that I felt would flow the best from one image to the next.
More to come soon, including iPhone photos.
A nice family-oriented neighborhood on my way to the beach. I took a really long walk along the Golden Gate Park to get to the beach and noticed block after block of this beautiful maze of wires.
Ahhhhh, the beach… One of the most relaxing times during my stay. Watching people write, dance, practicing karate moves, listening to music, cuddling with a significant other, doing Tai Chi, or, like me, wandering aimlessly.
The Golden Gate Park. Watching someone photograph the cherry blossoms.
Haight Ashbury, where all the hippies hang out. There was a distinctly different vibe there than anywhere else in the city. Like many other places in San Francisco, Haight Ashbury is a world all its own.
It was also the only place where I was offered drugs by five separate people in the space of, and I’m not exaggerating, 90 seconds! That made me laugh. I kept turning them down but they just kept popping out at me!
There was nothing particularly exciting to me about the “Crookedest Street in the World”. Except that view to North Beach. I only wished I had a zoom lens so I could do it justice.
Like it or not, there are two things you simply can’t ignore about San Francisco. Hippies as mentioned above, and gays. Ignoring either would be like ignoring the film industry in Hollywood. It’s just not reasonable.
And I’m sorry, but gay people are for the most part, extremely nice. That or in the gay community, I’m extremely handsome! I didn’t need to be gay to enjoy this part of town.
Oh and hey, I figured out why the Holga kept giving me such blurry images!! Turns out, the switch from “Normal” to “Bulb” (Bulb is for long exposures – you would need a tripod for it to look right), which of course is at the bottom of the camera (because where else would you put a critical switch to operating a camera?!), kept sliding over to Bulb without my doing anything. So every time I would prepare to take a shot, I learned to check and make sure it was still set to “Normal” since I wasn’t carrying a tripod with me.
This next shot, well I forgot to check. But man, look at that street’s angle!! Yes, walking around San Francisco is absolutely exhausting on the steep hills.
The “worst” day, weather-wise, was also my favorite. I had already walked across the Golden Gate Bridge a few days before, but it was raining hard that day and the wind was blowing like crazy, so naturally, I had to go hang out at a pier across from the bridge. Just to be alone and away from any crowds for a little while.
I will never be able to express the intensity of that half hour of my life. The sound of the waves raging beneath my feet, the tiny surfers in the distance taking advantage of the weather, the wind blowing like no other and the utter solitude on the pier with only some seagulls to keep me company…
Spectacular.
I don’t shoot as much film as I’d like to have time for, so yeah I’ve got a shot from as far back as when I was in Rome.
Rome’s Amphitheater. I’m starting to think that it’s not how crappy the Holga is supposed to be, it’s the way the film was loaded. I really don’t know what this thing is doing…
Right up by Millcreek Canyon on a beautiful (and rare) rainy day.
A lonely, less trodden path.
This was from a trip to Antelope Island from a while back. I like this first one. It feels like we’re looking up, but I was actually looking down a road back to the mainland.
Managed to get close to a buffalo. I wasn’t that brave, I stayed in my car.
And then he stopped to look at me…
And I can’t help it, I had to caption it haha
I’ve been excited to show you these for some time and now, I finally get to!
The images below are photographs taken with a Holga camera.
The Holga is a film camera. Medium format, which is larger than the 35mm film cameras most people remember. And it’s also listed under “toy camera” anywhere you look to buy it.
Why?
Because it sucks, that’s why. You laugh, but it’s true.
It sucks.
A lot.
It’s manufactured in China with exactly zero quality control, so if you and a friend each bought your own, you’d still end up with two completely different cameras, it’s made entirely of plastic (yes, even the lens) and it’s incredibly primitive in the control it offers.
Oh and don’t lick it either, there’s the slight possibility you might get lead poisoning. Remember; it was made in China! On the other hand, what the hell are you doing licking cameras?!
Anyway, but that’s also why boatloads of photographers love it so much. It’s primitive and unpredictable.
I can’t speak for other photographers, but my experience with the Holga has been liberating. That’s what I love about mine. The freedom. I go into any new shoot with two things on my mind.
1. Film is expensive and I only have 12 shots per roll. I better get this right.
2. This camera sucks. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll come out interesting. Still though… Get it right…
Whenever I get started on a shoot with my current digital camera, I have about 1,200 images worth of space. With a Holga, I have almost exactly ONE HUNDRED TIMES fewer shots at my disposal.
So I friggin’ pay attention.
So yes, it focuses me like digital cameras can’t. To me, that is liberating, because instead of focusing my energy on telling similar images apart, I get to pay closer attention to what I want to do NOW, with the camera in hand. But there’s the added bonus of not knowing what you’re gonna get, especially with a Holga, until you get your roll back from the lab.
Here’s why.
With professional cameras, your view is bounced around through a series of mirrors so you can see exactly what your lens is seeing. You see how far you’re zoomed in or out, what your focus looks like, there’s even an indicator to tell you what your exposure is gonna look like before you take the shot.
With a Holga, forget about mirrors; you look through a hole. You don’t have a clue what your lens is seeing. You have to literally guess what your focus is gonna be like based on some stupidly vague icons at the front of the lens. And you have two aperture settings. Sunny and cloudy.
And that’s it. Go take a picture.
And when you do go take a roll full of pictures and get them developed, you find that your Holga did a number of things you didn’t know it was doing. It leaked light onto the film in this frame but not on that one because the construction of the casing sucks so much, it missed focus because you can’t tell exactly where your focus is anyway and even where focus magically falls in your lap, the camera’s construction may be such that the bottom right corner of your images are out of focus regardless. I say “may be” because remember, no two Holgas are alike. I just know it does that on mine, with some frames where the issue is more pronounced than others. Oh and of course the thing Holgas are most famous for: vignetting. The corners of your images are darkened, not by choice like we do now digitally, but because that’s how your Holga came out of the factory.
The sheer unpredictability of the thing makes the results all the more exhilarating.
So I hope you enjoy my little collection so far. These have been shot between around November when I got it and during my trip to Europe, which by the way means that I had three cameras to juggle; the iPhone, the Canon and the Holga. And I had a 4-year-old. And it was cold. And the French have nukes.
What?! It’s more exciting when I put it like that!
