Holga Week 2017 went down the week of July 17-23, and I had a blast with my Holga F-Mount lens on the Nikon FG. I’ve shot with the lens before, on the D7000 and on film too, but this time, I really enjoyed it. If you missed this year’s edition, keep your eye out: God willing, it’ll roll around again in 2018.
There’s an old shopping mall on my way home from work. It’s in its last year of operation—it’s being torn down, slowly, to make way for the Dallas Midtown development—and for the last few years, a carnival has set up there a couple of times. I used to look forward to the Keller Fair every year, and have some nostalgia for travelling carnivals, and so I wanted to shoot it, and thought about shooting it, but never stopped on my way home, and never came back around when the rides were going. Not until this week, anyway.
I’m not sure if it was Monday or Tuesday, but one day, I swerved into the parking lot, stopped, parked, and walked around shooting the deserted carnival in bright sun…
Maybe it would’ve been better in the evening, but I like all the saturation from the bright sun, and there’s something a little bit disconcerting, maybe, or desolate about a deserted carnival, even in the bright sunshine. Really, I probably should’ve worked really late one day, or brought my darling, adorable wife out for some ribbon fries and cotton candy one evening, but that would be totally out of character for me (probably a good thing…).
The rest of the week was hectic, and I was sick for a couple of days and worked from home. The morning light and the vegetable patch made for a great chance to check out the lens flare characteristics on this copy…
Rainbow blobs, whispy whirls, strange desaturation. This lens hasn’t left the FG since.
I also did a little bit of free lensing with it, and the results speak for themselves… This might just be the ticket to getting my Marilyn Minter series/thing going again…
So that was Holga Week for me. It was a blast. Maybe next year, I’ll actually have a Holga camera to shoot, but if not, the F Mount is a fun toy, and has a character that is something special, and worthwhile for some subjects, more than I thought in my first few encounters with the lens. I’m glad I finally spent some quality time with it.
Now, I shot a whole other roll during the week, but I’m going to hold that back… I may tease it a bit later this week, or I might wait until I’m ready to share the project. I took one picture early in the week that set me on a course, got me started on a project that I shot heavily in the last few days of Holga Week, but then lost momentum on in weeks since. Part of the trouble is that I need to do some travel for it, but haven’t had the free time; I also need to re-shoot some things; I also need to wait for a rainy day (like today!) to try to get one specific shot… There’s loads to do for this, and I have an outcome in mind, so I’m excited, I just need to keep up momentum. God willing, I’ll have something to share before the end of the year.
