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Holga... Camera or Toy (2)
The more quirks the better!
Pro Hasselblad customers sometimes find a dealer who will let them try a selection of matching lenses to find the one they think has a bit more edge... serious Holga purchasers buy a selection sight unseen to go to the other extreme! Seriously though, serious pro Holga users are known to shoot images for corporate brochures for Fortune 500 companies with these plastic toys... and they probably charge more too!
I use my Holga for multiple-exposure effects... sometimes I think the wind-on knob (which makes staccato "plinking" sounds when turned) is going to break off it's spindle inside so I keep exposing on the same frame of film. The image above is a straight one-shot of the chateau in the small town where we lived a couple of years ago... the spotty image gives the impression of stars at night, although the shot was taken during the day and shows what serious vignetting my particular Holga has!
The refinements on Holgas include flash sync on the 120S model and built-in flash on the 120SF, distance scales of "Head" (3 feet), ''Two Persons & Child" (9 feet), "Barber's Shop Septet" (15 feet) and "Mountains or Teepee Encampment" (too far away - get closer!). The shutter speed is about 1/100th of a second and two light settings "Sun" (f/11'ish) and "Cloud & Sun" (f/8'ish)... you can jam this slider between stops for unknown effects on image quality if you have film to spare (of course you do) to try it out. There's also an interchangeable insert converting the camera from 6x6cms to 6x4.5cms formats.
I'm sure you'll be seeing more Holga images made on film in the digital years to come... so on a not-so-final-note, it's cool to form a rapport with a Holga... if you squeeze one gently it squeaks back to you!
PS : I've had my Holga for about fifteen years and threw the Instruction Sheet with the box when I bought it... now I read on a web-site that after removing the 6x4.5 insert (also lost) the holes revealed should be blocked off with black tape. I'll try it, although I may regret it... any improvement could ruin the "art" in my images!
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