HOLGA PUNK

words and pictures by Elliot Muir

Get your holga here

Whenever art or culture gets too sophisticated and tidy, you’ll usually find some creative insurgent unpicking it all, urgently trying to find something random and rootsy underneath. The Holga camera is the latest incarnation of lo-fi chic, and is currently ripping up the red carpet of mainstream digital photography. Holga is unashamedly the worst camera ever made. All the flaws that grown-up camera manufacturers have spent decades trying to eradicate are joyriding around her insides. Technically she is classed as a toy camera, but don’t be fooled – in the right hands she’s a serious creative tool with the potential to make your brain glow rainbows.

Part of Holga’s great charm is that her users require hardly any photographic experience to start making quirky images. By far the best approach is to shoot first and ask questions later, but here are a few tips to help start you off.

WHERE TO BUY:

Buy your Holga online here or www.lomography.com Be very careful on ebay, most of them come from Hong Kong and include a Free Gift!! but you may have to wait2 Months!! for delivery. If you can’t wait, then try the Photographers Gallery in Covent Garden, but be prepared to pay more. You shouldn’t ever pay more than around £50 or £60 for a brand new Holga.

FILM:

Generally, most pros will agree that pound for pound, film yields more vibe than digital. Holga has been built to work with high grade 120mm film, which is fairly near the top of tree in terms of image quality and resolution. You usually get what you pay for – cheap grade consumer film is a false economy. To find out more, have a good look at www.lomography.com/filmshop – then check out www.ebay.com or www.7dayshop.com for the best prices.

SHOOTING:

• Always make sure that the little switch on the bottom is set to N – this is the Normal setting. B stands for Bulb and you only use this at night for long exposures. Return it to N after making long exposures or you’ll blur and overexpose all your shots.
• Holga needs a lot of light. You’ll probably find that you have to use flash for most shots that aren’t in bright
sunlight.
• Be careful with the back of the camera, it has a tendency to fall off and wipe your film. Opening the back of the camera very slightly with film inside will give you ‘light leaks’ – magical peachy stains of retro analogue authenticity. They’re great.
• Pimp up your Holga. Go to www.squarefrog.co.uk and www.holgamods.com for detailed advice on modificationsand experimental techniques.

PROCESSING:

Most Holga people get their films processed by mail order. One popular place is www.spectrumimaging.co.uk but also try www.spectrumphotolabs.co.uk – they’re a bit more expensive but the quality of their work is faultless and they still do proper B&W processing. On the high street, Snappy Snaps and Jessops are good, but pricey.

SHARING:

Show your pics on Flickr and you’ll soon get an idea of what works and what doesn’t. Flickr group forums are the best place to find answers to any technical difficulties you may have. Check out –

www.flickr.com/groups/86881528@N00/
www.flickr.com/groups/dontforgettotakethelenscapoff
www.flickr.com/groups/holgachic
www.flickr.com/groups/holgaweekly

SUCCESS

Holga is rapidly gaining acceptance as a legitimate tool for both editorial and fine art photographic work, so there are some pretty exciting new opportunities opening up. Just remember not to take it too seriously; Holga works best when you leave space for chaos.

To check out another Lomo camera, the Diana+ go here

Elliot Muir is a graphic designer, writer and photographer – you can see more of his work at
www.flickr.com/photos/elliotmuir