Summer In Central Park

A couple of weeks ago I strolled into Central Park on a hot Saturday afternoon in Manhattan. My plan was simple: shoot some film with the Holga 120N that had seen little use over the last year; an issue I was bent on rectifying.

The camera felt a little unusual in my hands because I had not used it in a few months. Its weight is probably the most discombobulating feature as it is made almost entirely of plastic, and thus extremely light. My mitts are usually holding a metal camera with a solid weight, something that screams "machine," "tool," and "camera." I do not think of the Holga as a "toy" like so many others would be quick to say, but honestly, it requires an entirely different mentality to shoot properly. Whether I was shooting with the proper mindset is questionable, but, so it goes.

Furthermore, I accidentally managed to flick on the bulb setting switch that bought me one-way ticket to motion blur town; a real destination for anyone who has handled a Holga before.

Anyway, here are a couple images that I took with some mildly expired (but cold stored) Portra 400VC:



This dance squad put on a fun show that I was smiling the entire way through. Well done gents. My attempt of an action shot with a camera made for action.



This kid zoomed past me on his unicycle while displaying some impressive juggling skills. You can not tell all of that from the shot, but I like it for some reason.

I think I have taken some of my best shots with the Holga in the past, so I think I will be grabbing it more often from now on.

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Images From Figment and Bronica SQ-A

I finished up the roll of film housed in the Voigtlander Perkeo I for many many months, finally. These are some shots at Figment (which I talked about in my last entry):



This is one of my favorite shots I have taken of John. He looks very relaxed and I think I caught a great expression.

The colors are a little bit off because the film (Kodak Portra 400VC) used expired a decade ago. They had a bluish cast (the fact that we were under cloudy light did not help either), so I had to warm them up a bit, but still, I was very pleased that I pulled usable images from the roll.

The performance of the camera, the smallest 6x6 I have ever seen, can not be accurately judged because of the film's age. If I was forced to make an assessment of what I saw so far, the lens might have low contrast as it seemed like I had to add a fair amount to every image. I also have to figure out what is going on with the flash sync, as it did not seem to work even though a flash fired off. The good news is that the images look to be exposed fairly correctly, so I probably will not have to break into the shutter and lube it up. There are also no light leaks! These old folding cameras can have a problem with their bellows after so many years, but I may still want to apply some product to keep the leather supple.

In other news, last night I received the Bronica SQ-A outfit I had purchased through the classified section of the Rangefinder Forum. I had been holding out on buying another real camera (ie Leica M2 or Canon P) so that I could afford a medium format slr with all of my requirements. I was not going to purchase one unless it had a built in meter (or came with a metered prism), a couple of lenses, and was 6x6. This one fulfilled all of my needs and the entire system cost less than a well used M2 body alone - beyond a great deal. I will take some shots of it soon with my digital so that you can see what mine looks like, should you be curious. I will absolutely post some images from the roll I have in there once developed.

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