Restaurant door, Greenwich Church Street

Not sure if this doorway is still here now. The Snappy Snaps shop in the reflection has certainly RIP’d which is a shame since they developed this roll of film. Will another tourist tat shop replace it?

Shot with a Holga

I’ve learned so much more about photography and its basic principles (ie exposure, composition and development) over the last eighteen months through using film, particularly by restricting myself to a couple of film types and developers. I wish the same could be said about restricting the cameras. Film got me into medium format photography and as usual I immersed myself and found real love ® using vintage cameras, some over 70 years old. Lots of them…

Film is very unforgiving if you fuck anything up so you learn to get it right. Like not using fixer to develop the film, or not leaving the lenscap on, or not keeping the light off in the darkroom… no names.

So perversely I’m posting some lo-fi Holga images

I want to explore colour more. William Eggleston’s new(ish) exhibition ‘Paris’ is so hugely inspirational that I want to do some. Eggleston can afford the colour processing, I can’t, so I’ll have to use a digi.

But the Holga is such fun!

And the Holga is one of the few cameras that can be carried around Spitalfields without drawing the attention of the private security fuckwits. It’s a toy isn’t it. Unlike the 1000′s of high megapixel phones that are snapping away constantly round there. After all, if I were covertly scoping the place I’d really try to draw attention to myself wouldn’t I? Fucking idiots.

Brick Lane too. The last bit that is any good, up at the Bagel end.

Of course, I will still be using film. The Portra’s grain is to die for too (ISO 800). Messy negs, I blame the lab.

Fire Station

This firestation image scanned to about 16 inches long. It occupies nearly 4 35mm neg frames.

I loaded the Holga with an old roll of Fomapan 400 35mm. It is kind of tricky, not least because you have to count the clicks when winding the film (43 to load, 34 to wind on, decrementing as the takeup spool gets larger). I bolloxed it up of course but I think I wedged the 35mm cassette in too tight (there is a lot of wedging, shimming, elastic bands and foam plastic just to get the 35mm film travelling correctly through the 6×6 gate).

Up and down steps again

I find the ‘mistakes’ interesting. I have a rough idea of how I want the finished photo to look but there is a lot of guesswork involved. Vision is needed (natch…) plus the abandoning of traditional composition. Fingers need to be crossed too

The Point, Point Hill

Including the sprocket-holes is a bit of a cliche, but hey, I can, so I do! In true Holga fashion I needed to use copious amounts of sellotape on the 6×6 negative carrier so introduced yet another variable since the scanner lens focus is fixed at a certain height and it is difficult to stop the too narrow negs bowing.

Some of the results are eerie as hell. Look at the figure on the left in the photo below. I don’t even remember it and he/she looks naked.

Avenue, Greenwich Park

Some interesting effects with the animals too

Gizmo

The cat in the photo below is possibly the toughest cat in Deptford. She doesn’t give an inch to the dogs, in fact she seems to be saying ‘bring it on…’ Gizmo has to walk round her now that he knows how sharp her claws are (they ‘met’ recently hehe)

Tough cat

Here is my holgarised bastard take on Paul Strand’s White Fence, Port Kent, New York 1916

White Fence, Maidstone Hill, Greenwich 2009

The Fomapan 400 negs were developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 11 minutes, 30 secs initial agitation, 2 inversions every 30 seconds. Quality is actually a fairly secondary consideration here and I probably wouldn’t normally use Rodinal with Fomapan 400. However, I was aiming for Daido Moriyama like grain and I think I got it. This was the last roll of Fomapan 400 too. I won’t lament it.

I’ve really enjoyed this little Holga project. So much so that I’m going to explore medium format a bit more. I’m now waiting for a 40 year old Yashicamat 6×6 so I can get my teeth into into it, so stay tuned.

So today I developed my first 120 film ta da!!!! HP5+ 120 that has been hanging around waiting for this moment.

I think the dev went OK, tis hard to tell with Holga images. I was a bit apprehensive about loading the 120 stainless reel but once done I felt it was easier than a 35mm reel, doh. There is a lot less film for a start and the reels themsleves feel huge and sturdy after 35mm (using Kinderman reels off ebay for a song). The backing paper was no problem either, I thought it might get in the way.

I enjoy photographing with the Holga. For those that don’t know, this is a low tech plastic (toy) camera with a fixed really low quality plastic lens. It has very few controls – sun/shade and far/near. Excellent, I hear you say, keep it simple! However, the viewfinder is worse than useless and not worth looking through since it rarely points in the direction of the lens. Light leaks in the back and various other places, and there are a whole lot of other things ‘wrong’ with it. It was originally Soviet mass-produced but after ‘the fall of Communism’ the plant relocated to China from where mine was imported to Holgamods in the USA, where it was modded and sent to me in London for the princely sum of $25.00 (and the $ exchange rate at the time was $2 to the £) … pause for breath.

So why use such a crock of shit? Because it is fun primarily, but unusually it takes 120 roll film (12 6×6 or 18 6×4). Staggering! And I really like the square format and I have no other medium format camera (yet) so it gives me a chance to practice developing medium format roll film. But mainly it is fun and the results are random and it is hard to imagine something more different than the Leica. My Holga is held shut with velcro and people don’t take you very seriously when they see it, which is cool.

The most important trick is to remember to take the lens cap off… The other is to realise that focus, exposure, composition etc is something you have little contol over. Totally refreshing and leaves the way open to ‘creative’ photography lol.

This double exposure was taken with one shot of the steps going up and one of them going down.

The shot below needs to be seen as large as possible. It is a floating City of London

Then we get a bit more mundane with my fave lamposts

I don’t know if it is the HP5+. the Rodinal, the lense, the shape of the photos or the conbination of all or some but one of the characteristics of my Holga (and another great thing is that they are all different due to their random defects) is that there is an ‘aged’ look to some of these photos.

Finally a couple of straight shots in Deptford

The HP5+ 120 was developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 11 minutes, 20 seconds initial agitation, 2 gentle inversions every 30 seconds.