AutryEffect

I really like this song: The Epochs – Love Complete

Ms. Stokes in her superstar sunglasses

Ok, I will admit this one had a little PP.

First, some reading music:
Nouvelle Vague – Confusion

I just got back from Harmon’s with my first 4 developed rolls of film from the Holga. I knew it was going to be a little pricey to get them developed, but I sure wasn’t planning on spending $67! I had instructed them to develop the negatives only and then make CD’s for me, thinking it would be cheaper than getting prints made – especially since these were my first rolls and I knew that most of the photos would be trash. Turns out it would have been cheaper to get the prints made, becuase they charge $.70 for each print, but to put them on a CD, they charge $1 a photo! Geez! Anyway, here are some initial impressions….

Amy at Volta

Generally, I was very happy with the photos. They came out mostly as I expected, and some I was pleasantly suprised by, such as this double exposure of Amy playing on a merry-go-round at Westside Park:

Merry-go-round shenanigans

Of course, they didn’t all come out so well, vis-a-vis:

I used Kodak Portra 400VC color negative film and the colors came out really nice I think. I want to try some Ilford black and white film next and then maybe some slide film and get it cross processed… so many options! I can’t wait to take some photos of my nephew this weekend. I shouldn’t have used so many rolls of film on this nonsense, but I couldn’t help myself – I was excited!

As far as the mechanics of the camera – loading the film is definitely a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. The thing that messed me up the most was forgetting to advance the film after I had taken the photo. This left me with more than a couple unintentional double exposures, such as this one of Marie:

Sorry Marie!

You see, the frame number is printed on the back of the film itself – there is no counter that automatically advances when the shutter is pressed. So if you forget to wind the film, you can easily mess up 2 photos! Still, sometimes the results are interesting.

So, overall a good experience. I want to try out some more portraits with this thing. I haven’t used the flash at all, and I’ve seen some really cool photos on Flickr that make use of it. I also am going to definitely need to get a negative scanner, because getting CD’s made (or prints, really) is going to put me in the poor house!

Well, stay tuned becuase when Amy and I went on our little photo-venture with the Holga, I let her play with the LOMO FISHEYE! So as soon as I get around to gettting those developed I will post some up here. All the photos from the Holga can be viewed here on Flickr.

Today I got something wonderful…

Me with my new Holga

A Holga 120FN! I’ve been wanting one of these babies for a long time. It’s a cheap, medium format camera (that means it uses the funky 120mm film as opposed to standard 35mm film) that has quite a cult following in the photography world — it’s part of what’s known as the “lo-fi” photography trend. I think I first came across some Holga photos in the stream of my talented Flickr contact 10 Cent Designer. Inspired by those creative photos, I discovered lots more around Flickr and was blown away by the work of photographers like doctor.boogie and Steph Goralnick.

"for mona" by Steph Goralnick

And now I have one of my very own! I started taking some photos today and I can’t wait to see how they come out. The film is a little tricky to load and wind, so I’m sure this first roll is going to be pretty crappy. Thank goodness that Harmon’s here in Gainesville still develops 120 film, so at least I won’t have to send it away to be developed. I think eventually I’m going to have to break down and buy a negative scanner, but we’ll see how the prints come out first.

Stay tuned for more Holga goodness!

Lisa Kudrow might be one of the funniest people alive, and this WebTherapy series she has on Hulu proves it: