The Holga Chronicles

About a year ago, I bought a Holga.  I ran a roll and well, lets just say it was a failure of epic proportions.  I tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it.  Recently, I decided I wanted to explore film.  In addition to picking up a used slr, I pulled out the Holga and ran a roll of film ... again, failure!  Well, I got some advice, watched some videos and gave it another go and... I've got photos.  

When I first bought the Holga I envisioned questionably exposed, retro looking images. While I like the heavily saturated images, I find that I have a soft spot for the overexposed and faded images.  At any rate, I look forward to using it more and seeing what I come up with.

Nature: Bleeding Heart

I looked out the backdoor the other day and discovered there are Bleeding Heart flowers in the yard.  Every week there seems to be something new and beautiful blooming.  

Nature: Rocks

For some reason, I decided I wanted to photograph the gravel in the driveway.  In color they're a mix of warm brown and sandy colors with hints of red.  But of course I didn't want that.  I wanted a black and white image with contrast and grain.  

Nature: Thorns

I am acquainted with an insane rose bush.  The thing has a mind of its own and a personality far too grand for the trellis it's involved with. Said bush and trellis are a dysfunctional couple and I have suffered the fallout on more than one occasion of their thorny battles.  

Nighttime Photography: Being Intuitive

I was "revisiting & re-editing" some of my older photos and came across some from a workshop focused on intuitive photography, The Art of Intuitive Photography.  It was a nighttime shoot in Long Island City...no flash, no tripod, just your camera and your intuition. Though it was a bit nippy out, it was great fun as well as being a learning experience.  You learn to see differently when it's just you and your camera with no excess equipment to distract you.

My Favorite Images: Cherry La Voix

Several months after I took this photo of singer/performer Cherry La Voix, I went back and decided to re-edit it.  I knew what I wanted it to look like in my head, all I had to do was achieve it in post.  Though the image looks like it could be a staged pose, it's actually a live performance shot.   

Nature: Japanese Maple

Springtime means that the Japanese Maples are regaining their leaves!  I also wanted to make them look a little funky.  This is the result!

Nature: Spring Flowers

It's Spring!  The warm weather insisted my camera and I spend some time outside. The first photo was what I was aiming for ... a simple close up full of rich color.  The second photo, was the very first photo I took on my excursion today.  Of course, I forgot to check my camera settings which were still all set up for nighttime photography! Needless to say, it turned out overexposed and rather crappy.  So, I ran it through my editing software, turned it black and white fiddled around with the exposure, tone, added some grain and other bells and whistles to come up with what you see below.  It kind of reminds me of something taken with inferred film.

Camera Phone Chronicles: Tulip

Springtime brings flowers and for a couple of weeks now, flowers have been popping up in that wild mess known as the front garden.  Today I was walking by the window and noticed that tulips have started randomly popping up around the place...no rhyme to reason, just popping up.  There are at least four different areas of the garden that the tulips have decided to display themselves.  So, I pulled out my camera phone and snapped a shot!