Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Holga 2009 Recap - 5 things I loved




(me showing my Holga some love)

Re-cap tr.v. re·capped, re·cap·ping, re·caps
verb - To recapitulate, summarize briefly; "Let's recapitulate the main ideas"
noun - A recapitulation - a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer discussion

Re-cap (Photography) - something most toy camera photographers never do to their lenses.

Ok so maybe I made up that last definition… but it's true!  The first rule of using your new Holga is to throw away the lens cap.  If you don't, you will inevitably forget, leave it on, and shoot a whole roll of blank film.  It's happened to us all.

2009 was a great year for the Holga and toy camera photography in general.  I wanted to share with you the five most exciting Holga happenings, in my opinion, of the year.

1.  Holga Inspire / Holga Limited

The official website for the Holga camera was launched and is run by the makers themselves.


They also held a travelling Holga exhibition!  One of the most recent stops was in New York City.  Judging by the photos, it looked like it was a success!





(Thank you to Christine So from Holga Limited for the photos, as well as the complete list of Holga products below)

2. New Holga Products that we drooled over (apologies to pillows everywhere)

Twin Lens Reflex Cameras:
Holga 120 TLR
Holga 120 GTLR
Holga 135 TLR
Holga 135 TLR BC



Read reviews of the Holga 120 TLR Here:


K series:
Holga K-Series 35mm Camera with Colour Flash & Fisheye Lens
Holga K-Series 35mm Camera with Multiple Exposure Button
Holga K-200NM Camera with Fisheye Lens and Fisheye View Finder


Accessories:
Holga Tele Lens 2.5X
Holga Wide Lens 0.5X



Macro Lens Set (each set of one each of ML-30 & ML-60)
Close-up Lens Set (each set of one each of CL-120, CL-250 & CL-500)



Macro Constant Light (without AC/DC Adaptor)
HOLGA-15B Flash Unit with Color Filter
HOLGA-160 Mini Flash
HOLGA-160S Mini Slave Flash
Fisheye View Finder with Mounting Bracket for Holga 120 Cameras




I had a chance to try out the Wide and Tele lenses, and posted some comparison shots here.

3. New Stores to feed our addictions


This store opened up in early 2009, and features a wide range of toy cameras, Superheadz cameras, and expired film.  I was lucky enough to snag one of their limited edition Four Corners Dark Holgamods Custom Holgas.  Its a great Holga, I am loving it so far!  One of the big reasons I love this store, is that they donate a percentage of profits to homeless animals.  What a great cause, and definitely worthy of support.


This store is run by the same people who bring us Light Leaks Magazine and is brand spanking new!  Lots of great products here including vintage Dianas, Holgas, accessories and film.  I am happy about this one, since it is Canada based!!

4. Events


Holgapalooza
The first of its kind - run by the folks at Toycamera.com and Light Leaks - Holgapalooza was a worldwide summer contest!  With tons of categories and prizes, it was a huge event!!

Read more about it, and find out who the winners were, on the official website.

Looking forward to next years event!

World Toy Camera Day - October 17, 2009
Held every year, World Toy Camera Day is always a fun time, and its a great chance for the community to come together and share photos taken on this day.



5.  New Blogs / Blogs I Loved

Four Corners Dark - tons of toy camera posts, new products, links, features, you name it!

Holga Blog - Reviews, tutorials, features, and lots of holga photo goodness with the "best of the month" posts.

Sidenote: I had the opportunity to write a piece for Holga Blog on self portraits, you can check out the articles here:



Photographers / Photo blogs:



There are many more great blogs out there, I don't have room to mention them all!  You can find them all listed in my blogroll to the right.

Well, after all that - I want to hear from YOU!  What do you think were the best Holga / toy camera happenings of the year? What was your personal favourite?



And a big thank you to all my readers for visiting and commenting.  I love writing this blog, its officially been a year since I started it, and I hope it will continue to inspire and inform you!  Long live Holga!

~Jen



8 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Jen!

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  2. First comment in 2010: Jen, happy new year from Hungary!

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  3. Happy new year from Valencia, Spain Jen.

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  4. Happy New Year from just down the 401, Jen :-)

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  5. Happy new year to you as well Jen! I hope you continue following and evolving your Holga passion throughout the year :)

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  6. Good luck with this year Jen. I'll continue to keep an eye on your amazing Holga work.

    I love the look of those close up and macro lenses. Next pay check...

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  7. Thanks Jen!Your blog is so wonderful.We hope all your wishes come true and that everyone enjoys using the Holga in this new decade! Thanks for your ongoing support:)

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  8. I love my wide angle lens and Holgon strobe. Just picked up a Holga lens for my Canon film SLR. First roll was promising but it really is a day time lens.

    Jen, Just started following your blog. I could have used it when I started out a year ago. Thanks for giving me something to aspire to. Love the work. Thanks for peeking at my humble start up blog. Keeping snapping shutters.

    ReplyDelete

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