Holga meditations
The Holga is a cheaply made plastic medium format camera. It has minimal control functions and focus and exposure settings are at best educated guesses. Much of my other work requires careful attention to technical adjustments in equipment; whether I’m scrolling through clunky camera menus or toggling dials on a digital set up or adjusting knobs and shifting planes of focus and perspectives on a view camera. The Holga pushes me to let go of control and allows me to notice the world around me when I’m walking around. Peculiar or mundane buildings. Out of place furniture. Aesthetically discarded trash. Residential window assemblages. Without the pressure of achieving pinpoint focus or exact apertures and shutter speeds, I’m able to simply point the camera and move on to the next curious or banal thing I notice. The end results often result in poorly exposed images and because of the plastic lens coupled with imprecise manufacturing, you also get odd light streaks and vignetting.
