The Holga Pictures - Barn

It was an overcast day, and the conditions were perfect for taking pictures with the Holga. Bright skies usually require a good deal of burning to achieve any definition, so cloudy skies make developing and printing much easier. The barn is across from the baseball field in Sewanee, and had interested me because of it's weathered wood and general condition. I made three exposures, this being the best. The print is done using split filter exposures on variable contrast paper. My first attempt at making a print was unsatisfactory, and I waited several days before making a second attempt. There is extensive burning on the sky and field in the foreground. Bringing out the detail of the clouds, as well as the texture in the grass required quite a bit of patience. I've done some further burning of the sky with Photoshop, a correction I would make if I were to make another print from this negative.






















© 2009 Greg Petropoulos

The Holga Pictures

It's been a while since my last post, largely because I haven't been doing as much digital photography. I had the pleasure of taking a film photography class with renowned photographer Pradip Malde. It was an incredible learning experience working in the darkroom. The camera we used was a Holga 120mm. It's a cheap plastic camera with a plastic lens. Since the goal of the class was to learn darkroom techniques, the camera was simply a tool to expose film. The Holga has it's charms, however. Because of it's cheap lens and unpredictable light leaks, pictures taken with the Holga often have a vintage look to them. Vignetting is very common. But with a little skill, and a bit of luck, the Holga is capable of rendering some good images. I will post a few of the images I have captured with the Holga, as well as some discussion about the darkroom techniques used to make the prints. These prints are scanned and Photoshopped in order to correct the scanned image.




















All Images © 2009 Greg Petropoulos