From My Corner of the Universe

I got a Holga from my secret santa (my sister) and was the happiest person on earth.  I’ve been wanting one for a very long time.  It is a very light plastic camera.  I think even lighter than the 110 camera I used to have back in the 80’s.

Holga’s are supposed to produce dreamy distorted photos, or as worded here:

My sister even included a couple of medium format rolls of film.  This one is the black and white one:

I was so excited to use this camera but later learned that it was harder to have the film developed than expected.  I went to Mike’s Camera because it was the closest one to my house but I don’t know if that was the best place to go.  I heard Wolf Camera also develops medium format so I’ll have to give them a try next time.

I first used the black and white film because it was 400 speed and I was taking it indoors (my Holga is flashless).  Out of the 16 exposures, only 7 were developed because the others were probably exposed to light when I loaded and unloaded (I forgot I was supposed to do this in the dark), and out of the 7 photos, there was only one I would call decent.  Two other were not bad.

These are the photos:

The photos were scanned in black and white by my husband.  The actual photos have a tint to them, similar to this:

I added the the yellow/brown in photoshop to make it look as close to the actual picture as possible.  The photo is actually a little more bluish but I had a hard time trying to pull that color out.  Also, the graininess on the photos is from the dust on the flatbed scanner.

For some better Holga photos, visit my “Altered Lens” board at Pinterest.com.  These images were repinned from other pinners who’ve pinned them from bloggers and websites.

And, before I end this post, I wanted to share a song I still love by Bruce Springsteen called, “Secret Garden” from, Jerry Maguire, a movie I also still love.