The Opposite of Digital Photography

My friend James lent me his Holga camera, or possibly his fiance Jessica's Holga camera, and I'm glad he did. It was a lot of fun reverting to the ancient methods of photography for a couple weeks; physically capturing photons on light-sensitive chemical sheets instead of image sensors for a change.

At first I really missed the instant gratification of my little Canon Elph - take the picture; see the picture; upload the picture; done - but eventually the waiting really started to grow on me. Friday morning, when I woke up, I said to Penelope (who you'll see in one of the photos in the series) "Today's the day! My photos should be in at the camera shop today!"

How long has it been since you felt that?

And the other rituals... the cranking of the film onto the spool by hand, checking the little red window for the next photo number... fumbling around in a dark bathroom or basement, feeling for the little slots where the film loads into the camera... actually feeling the finality of each snap of the shutter, realizing that this one photo is now taken and cannot be untaken or erased from the memory card at all... all that was different, and kind of thrilling.

So here are the pictures I took; you can jump to the slideshow by clicking on the image.

I hope you like looking at them as much as I liked taking them. It's almost impossible to take a really good picture with a Holga camera - they cost about $20 and are made of all plastic - but it's equally difficult to take a really bad one. And even if you do, you'll probably like it anyway, just because it's yours.

Enjoy.