A new second hand Holga

A couple of weeks ago I picked up my holga from the royal mail depot. It's one of the early incarnations with absolutely no frills or flash which is just how I like them. With some Neopan 400 at the ready I unpacked it, loaded the film and headed straight to the beach to walk the dog. Here was the first thing I saw complete with exposure suggestion! The Holga only came with a 6 x 4.5cm mask so I've been busy with a stanley knife and a hot flame...

Walking

The act of walking alone along the sea shore remains one of the great pedestrian romantic traditions. This was taken between West and East Wemyss, Fife, last weekend. Some asked me recently about why I don't just use digital for all my photos. My response was I do - I scan negatives and use the internet to display images. I often use a digital slr. The discussion got on to one of the percieved great advantages of digital imaging, that of being able to see your image straight away. I admit there a real advantages here and the digital slr gets me taking photos of things that I would have given up on with a film camera. Equally valid though, I pointed out that there is another kind of memory card, in the mind, and that 'card' carries more resonance than the electronic one. Film negatives are latent images.They need to be developed, worked on, and I think that's often how the brain works, if you embrace a little patience and allow yourself to daydream. Like you do walking along a beach, alone.

the art of cheap cameras (1)

Here are some pictures from the first roll of film taken with my 'new' point and shoot, a Rollei Prego with a fixed 35mm lens. It cost £5.01 from Ebay and has no instructions and smells of pipe tobacco. But hey, it's a point and shoot. Having said that it does have some rather nifty little modes, like the ability to take a photo overy 30 secs, 10 mins or 30 mins. The film is Agfa apx100 in xtol for those of you that are interested, and I've made a few photoshop tweaks. My favourite is the one of the church and collapsed shed. Somehow the roof stayed in tact.

I am in search of the camera I can have with me at all times and thought I'd try a few out so the Rollei is the first and is on trial. I'm already a fan as I have a Rolleiflex TLR which is nothing short of fantastic. In spite of partly embracing digital I still get annoyed by 0's and 1's inability to restrain tonal ranges. A lot of my images are taken by the sea and digital just seems to blow out. My ideal scenario - a small, palm sized, film PAS with a class lens and a shutter with no lag.

Shorelines

A construct

An attempt at public art on the shoreline with a found, broken half of a picnic cup and a patterned rock. I guess I could call it a temporary installation as I don't think it will last the next tide. There's a spooky face just to the right of the cup.

Junior Church

I was taking some pictures of a lovely, snow covered church at Inverduie, by Aviemore. It was one of those moments where you see a scene from the car, stop to take a photo; but it doesn't work out. This caravan, tucked away behind the church, interested me more.

Spring Equinox

It just goes to show that creating labels for yourself doesn't work! I had decided that my 2 blogs (asummerlens and awinter lens) should have cut off points, and they should be the dates of the Spring and Autumn Equinox (is this a plural? Equinox's sounds wrong...).

So here is the first image that I want to post a day after the Spring Equinox. It's completely wintery, more wintery than anything on awinterlens. We were up at the top of Cairngorm celebrating my partner's 40th birthday.