More evocative photos by using a Holga or other simple camera / process.

[Bob Michaels]

Please, if you are among those who evaluate photos by their technical qualities rather than the viewer emotion they evoke, this thread is not for you. Move on and save yourself the frustration.

However if the most important factor in a photo is the response it causes in the viewer's mind and technical quality only has to meet a minimal threshold.......

I am curious how many of you feel you can, or have the potential, to create images with more impact by using a really simple camera, Holga or otherwise. I have always had interest in the "Holga mystique" and shoot with one from time to time but not on a regular basis. I do understand the concept of creating better images by freeing oneself from anything technical.

Yesterday I was able to spend the day with someone who has created a significant body of work, a photo essay of the last truck farmers in the south http://www.perrydilbeck.com/truckfarmers.html, using a Holga. He told me the reason he shot exclusively with a Holga for ten years was because he felt his previous work was becoming "too static". I can relate to what he says.

I ask how many of you feel the final quality of your photographic endeavors is improved by greatly simplifying the process? Personally, I know that using only one film, one camera, one lens, auto exposure, frequently zone focusing, helps me. But I still struggle with using the Holga on a consistent/exclusive basis. How about you?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Please, if you are among those who evaluate photos by their technical qualities rather than the viewer emotion they evoke, this thread is not for you. Move on and save yourself the frustration.

However if the most important factor in a photo is the response it causes in the viewer's mind and technical quality only has to meet a minimal threshold.......

I am curious how many of you feel you can, or have the potential, to create images with more impact by using a really simple camera, Holga or otherwise. I have always had interest in the "Holga mystique" and shoot with one from time to time but not on a regular basis. I do understand the concept of creating better images by freeing oneself from anything technical.

Yesterday I was able to spend the day with someone who has created a significant body of work, a photo essay of the last truck farmers in the south http://www.perrydilbeck.com/truckfarmers.html, using a Holga. He told me the reason he shot exclusively with a Holga for ten years was because he felt his previous work was becoming "too static". I can relate to what he says.

I ask how many of you feel the final quality of your photographic endeavors is improved by greatly simplifying the process? Personally, I know that using only one film, one camera, one lens, auto exposure, frequently zone focusing, helps me. But I still struggle with using the Holga on a consistent/exclusive basis. How about you?

Dear Bob,

I greatly believe in simplifying the process, which is why I prefer simple, controllable, reliable cameras. The Holga is simple, but neither reliable nor controllable.

Personally, I believe that a Lyubitel (rock bottom basic Soviet TLR) would have been quite significantly better than the Holga, and that using a decent camera -- ANY SLR, for example, such as a Kowa -- would have been better still.

Yes, composition and lighting matter more than technical quality. But deliberately choosing a Holga suggests to me either (a) an inability to use a 'real' camera or (b) an unwillingness to admit that you have mastered technical quality and are therefore pretending on a faux-egalitarian basis that a Holga is 'as good'.

I know this is a personal viewpoint, but (for example) on my desk in front of me is a Splendidflex TLR. Why on earth would I use that instead of ANY focusing roll-film folder or for that matter half-decent camera in any format (e.g. Graflex quarter-plate SLR, Lyubitel, or even Great Wall)? I just don't see the appeal of soft, poorly-focused pics once you've mastered composition.

Edit: And if you don't think this is emotional -- well, it is. Why saw one leg off before you go for a 1000 mile walk?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Dear Bob,
I greatly believe in simplifying the process, which is why I prefer simple, controllable, reliable cameras. The Holga is simple, but neither reliable nor controllable.
R.

Roger: I am in the same place you are. But I am curious where others are. I suspect we may be at the far end of the spectrum here in our belief that simplicity improves our photos. It is possible that no one here uses something like a Holga on a consistent serious basis for the reasons you stated although I know it is done.

 

[Bobbie]

I just don't see the appeal of soft, poorly-focused pics once you've mastered composition.

Cheers,

R.

You obviously did not click on the link to see the images in "The last Harvest".

Really wonderful images. Thanks for that Bob!

Far superior to anything on rogerandfrancis.com.








Bobbie.

 

[Bobbie]

It is possible that no one here uses something like a Holga on a consistent serious basis for the reasons you stated although I know it is done.

Take a look at some of Arvay's work HERE.

 

[FrankS]

I go as far as using vintage lenses for their look, which is the same in principle as using a Holga for the look that it produces which is somewhere short of clinical perfection, but I don't go that far. I would not use an uncontrollable, unpredictable and unreliable camera body in place of my cameras which offer simplicity, reliability , and control over the outcome.

 

[Roger Hicks]

You obviously did not click on the link to see the images in "The last Harvest".


Really wonderful images. Thanks for that Bob!

Far superior to anything on rogerandfrancis.com.

Bobbie.

Dear Bobbie,

Even more obviously, I did. I just don't like it.

If you think it's better than anything on www.rogerandfrances.com (note spelling), that's your privilege. Why and how are these images improved by being unsharp? And is every single one genuinely better than any one of the thousands of images on our site?

Again, it's your privilege to believe that they are better than anything there. Frances and I don't claim to be the best photographers on earth. But I stand by what I said: I see no merit, in any form, in deliberately throwing away sharpness and focus in these pictures.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger: I am in the same place you are. But I am curious where others are. I suspect we may be at the far end of the spectrum here in our belief that simplicity improves our photos. It is possible that no one here uses something like a Holga on a consistent serious basis for the reasons you stated although I know it is done.

Dear Bob,

The question, of course, is what is simplicity? You and I have one view; others believe that 'simplicity' equates to 'refusal to master the craft' or 'a denial, after mastering the craft, that anything actually matters'.

To go to another extreme, I find a surprising amount of Ansel Adams's later work to be sterile and dull, despite technical excellence. This is not the same as saying that it is all rubbish; merely that some of it can survive technical hypertrophy, via compositional quality. while some cannot.

For me, techique/technical quality and aesthetic quality are mutually interdependent, rather than mutually exclusive. The extent to which either is more important depends on the photograph, at least as much as on the photographer.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Bob Michaels]

I got no dog in this fight.............

I will only add that I saw Perry Dilbeck's 16x20 prints. I believe there are no technical issues that detract from the emotion conveyed by the series.

Perry Dilbeck believes that what he recorded would have been impacted negatively by using a more typical camera. He said that was a function of both his state of mind and the subjects. Hence his use of the Holga.

But he's Perry Dilbeck and I'm Bob Michaels. What works for him may or may not work for me. I just try to observe and learn.

 

[Bobbie]

I see no merit, in any form, in deliberately throwing away sharpness and focus in these pictures.

Cheers,

R.

😕. What's so bad about this one for example?

(It's only a screen capture).

 

[pmun]

Dear Bob,
Yes, composition and lighting matter more than technical quality. But deliberately choosing a Holga suggests to me either (a) an inability to use a 'real' camera or (b) an unwillingness to admit that you have mastered technical quality and are therefore pretending on a faux-egalitarian basis that a Holga is 'as good'.

I think this is a very narrow view as it excludes all those who use Holgas purely for a sense of adventure, experimentation or challenge. Its unpredictability suites a particular outlook or situation.

http://www.foundphotography.com/archives/holga_120s/

www.urbanpaths.net

 

[Bobbie]

Please, if you are among those who evaluate photos by their technical qualities rather than the viewer emotion they evoke, this thread is not for you. Move on and save yourself the frustration.

@Roger Hicks.
Maybe you should have heeded the OP's first para?

 

[Roger Hicks]

where do I fit within your equation, I carry two leicas with the best lenses that work for me - I also carry a holga which both Bob and Roger have publicly admitted they like my work produced from the holga and the leicas - -- every tool serves a purpose=

my work focus has been quite a bit in the blues which are sloppy, dirty, gritty, and low brow by any purist standards - sometimes you need an old beat up archtop rather than a martin -- as long as you can get your results -- it's the difference between muddy waters and jeff healey

Well, yes. This was the thing for me, really. The series was about poor farmers, doing the best they could. Failing to record them faithfully (which in this case includes 'sharply', as far as I am concerned) seemed to me like a betrayal. Recording a 'down and dirty' scene in a deliberately bluesy way seems legitimate to me, in a way that this was not. Of course that's only a personal opinion but what other sort have we?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

@Roger Hicks.
Maybe you should have heeded the OP's first para?

Dear Bobbie,

Maybe you should read the last para of my first post.

Emotional reaction can be triggered by many things. Some of us are excessively sensitive to one thing or another. I disagree with you. That doesn't mean I'm right. But nor does it mean you're right.

This thread is richer for both our contributions, though I can't help feeling you were gratuitously rude about www.rogerandfrances.com merely because you don't agree with me.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I think this is a very narrow view as it excludes all those who use Holgas purely for a sense of adventure, experimentation or challenge. Its unpredictability suites a particular outlook or situation.

Fair enough. I said 'suggests to me', not 'this is an eternal verity'. I genuinely don't see why unpredictability in technical quality, and using unreliable cameras, is desirable. To those who do, the very best of luck.

But should I refrain from expressing my views merely because I know that there are those who will disagree?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Bobbie]

This thread is richer for both our contributions, though I can't help feeling you were gratuitously rude about www.rogerandfrances.com merely because you don't agree with me.

Cheers,

R.

You have no images posted in the gallery here, so I was using your website images as a yard stick to see where your prejudices came from.

What I disagree with is your premiss that the Holga images linked to by the OP are all "poorly focussed and unsharp". I don't believe that they are.

Is your monitor calibrated correctly?

 

[pmun]

should I refrain from expressing my views merely because I know that there are those who will disagree?

Absolutely not, credit to you and all for taking part but especially Bob for starting the thread (it was getting a bit quiet here).

www.urbanpaths.net

 

[Roger Hicks]

You have no images posted in the gallery here, so I was using your website images as a yard stick to see where your prejudices came from.

What I disagree with is your premiss that the Holga images linked to by the OP are all "poorly focussed and unsharp". I don't believe that they are.

Is your monitor calibrated correctly?

Ummm....

Calibration controls colour and contrast, not sharpness.

I fully take your point that one can deduce very little from low-resolution screen images but most of the pics in the truck farmer series do, indeed, look to me to be poorly focused and unsharp.

This may be fine in 16x20 inch prints, or it may not; but even if it is, I fail to see what it adds to the images. I think they'd work better sharp. Or are you suggesting that Holga images are well focused and sharp as compared with... well, almost anything, really, except possibly Dianas and Splendidflexes?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Bobbie]

I'm not here to argue Roger, though it seems that you are.
Again I refer you to the OP's first paragraph and suggest that this thread is not for you.
I find your opinion here rather akin to going into the FSU forum and stating that all Zorkis are rubbish.




Bobbie.

 

[pmun]

i personally like lots of swirling oof areas

What does this mean please?
It's OK, I've just realized!