I love my Holga camera. It has, by far, the lowest optical quality of any of the cameras I own — except for maybe my mobile phone camera. I only use it for casual snapshots, just the kind of thing where I don’t care if the photographs turn out perfectly. Which is good, because with this low-tech camera, a lot of them don’t turn out at all. But that’s part of its charm: When the photos do work, they have a certain quality of randomness that’s hard to get during post-processing.
So I don’t plan on replacing my digital or 4×5 cameras with a Holga when I work on projects. But I do find that I’m taking it with me more and more when I leave the house instead of grabbing a digital point-and-shoot. I have a bad habit of getting too snap happy with a point-and-shoot; and I take far fewer pictures with the Holga, which is fine, too. Plus, I’m a lot less worried about someone snatching my $30 plastic camera than my D-SLR. It certainly has its drawbacks: it’s absolute rubbish in low-light situations or when I need any measure of control. But it’s a lot of fun to use!
Here are just a few photographs from the last year. (Click any picture for a larger version.)
