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: Four Corners Dark Holga TLR Review Holga Blog's Review 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 Four Corner Store 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. Light Leaks Shop 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. Link to the Flickr Group 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: Ten Tips for better Holga Self Portraits Holga Self Portrait Challenge  Photographers / Photo blogs: Blur dot Blog Blurry Thinking Cheap Plastic Goodness Go Tread Go GreenSt's Photo Blog Holgarific Light Sensitive Push Processed Salt Stained Eyes Terrorkitten 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