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How can people like holgas?

but for the normal person, why would you buy one? there all plastic, plastic lens, viggeting LIGHT LEAKS? 2 shutter speeds and apetures?

I don't classify myself as a normal person, so I can see the benefits of using a Holga. If you have the vision to see when to use one they're the perfect tool.

Your comments on your all metal camera are totally specious. The material a camera is made out of has no bearing on it's worth for making images. In fact, some people actually have cameras made from WOOD of all things. At least I don't have to worry about termites or carpenter ants with my plastic camera.

I still have my Kodak Starmite from 1960, and my Brownie from 1956 - both made from plastic - and both making your camera a relative youngster. Proving ...?? about plastic as a material?
 
Hey, there's nothing wrong with Holgas -- they are dirt cheap, and they allow people to get their feet wet with medium format - nothing wrong with that, since we need to buy medium format film to keep production going. I agree with the other posts, that Holgas are fun because of their poor quality, and the often surprising results.
 
Wonderful material, plastic. People have sailed and flown around the world in it. I think I will go lie on the bottom of the pool now.
 
Wood is a very good material for lf
 
Holga's are the poor persons digital.

You get all these artsy effects and you don't even have to buy photoshop.

Michael
 
Markok765 said:
Wood is a very good material for lf

Wow...imagine that...and to think I used to be a Deardorff dealer and never figured that out...
 
I think Holga cameras and their clones, and lots of other photographic tools that similarly deliver non-literal images are so popular because they sometimes lend a symbolic or iconic quality to everyday objects.

To me the Lensbabies and Holgas, Infrared Film, pinholes, litho printing, etc., etc., sometimes can be used to make a subject which might be very literal and plain into something out of one's dreams, fantasies or ideals of those subjects.

A picture of a sailboat on a lake with a normal lens and the sun at high noon might (or might not) be kind of a boring snapshot that might only mean something to the guy who owns the boat. The exact same setting with a Holga or some other alternative technique might take that same subject and make it 'every' sailboat to the viewer. By fuzzying up the details or in some other way allowing the viewer to not get stuck on the specific details of this boat in this image, perhaps it makes it easier to bridge the gap between the viewer's personal experience (what they bring to the image) and what the artist is saying. It makes the sailboat a symbol or an icon.

To me, the Great Photographers somehow manage to do this and still have a very literal photograph. They made these long-standing iconic images that are perfectly sharp and clear. They don't rely on a Holga or unusual film to make something special. They somehow do it with composition, light, subject, editing. I strive for that.

I played with a Holga. I've played with lots of odd techniques. I'm now trying to 'see' with plain eyes and say something that is important to me with plain technique. Hopefully people who see my prints will feel something.

As for Marko. The original post has to come under the heading of a "troll"...it seems to have ONLY been posted to draw attention and spark a silly argument.

Marko, I really thought that when you got spanked so soundly last month, we'd only hear from you when you had something to say. I was wrong.

Too many words Marko.

Neal
 
I hope that someday I'm good enough to shoot a holga. It makes pictures that remind me of dreams, kinda fuzzy, a little bright in spots, surreal almost.
 
Hmm, it's peer pressure. They aren't even fun for me, really.
 

I've yet to find that second shutter speed on my holga. Some pictures I seen taken with them I like some I don't, just like any other camera. Its the image and its interpetation that make a good photo, not the camera. As for people who don't like them ,guess what, Holga's use film. Everyday there another post on this site about film availability and how nobodys going to make it anymore because nobody buying it. I say let the holgas users good and bad fireaway as long as they let me have film for my Mamiya 645's ,my old 6x6 folders and tlr's.

James,