Holga Cameras

Holga Cameras

The Holga model cameras, originally made in Hong Kong in 1982, are literally small boxes full of problems and defects. It’s a simple box camera design, and the word “simple” can be applied to almost every aspect of the camera. It contains practically no features of the kind found in even simple cameras. It has no adjustable shutter speed, no aperture control (there is a switch between “sunny,” and “cloudy,” but it doesn’t work), no flash, no tripod mount, and a lens that isn’t even made of glass. The fact that both the frame and the lens are constructed very cheaply leads to Holga photographs suffering from numerous defects and distortions, including blurring, light leaks, soft focus, fogging, scratched negatives, chromatic distortions and heavy “vignetting,” a darkness around the edges of the pictures. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) all of these imperfections has lead to Holga photographs being well-regarded by artists and journalists as a valid photographic subgenre all to itself. Many artists customize their cameras, changing the lens, fixing the aperture mechanism and altering them to work with Polaroid film, creating “Holgaroids” or “Polgas.”

Holga Camera Photos

Photographs taken with a Holga camera have a very distinctive look. Most prominent is the vignetting, which a darkness around the edges and corners of the pictures. It makes it appear as if the focus of the image is surrounded by a black circle, as if we’re seeing it through a telescope or a keyhole. The other assorted defects add to this, making the image seem less real and more stylized, almost as if they were a picture of something existing in a dream. A large gallery of Holga photographs can be found at the online Holga Toy Camera gallery of Matt Lit (http://www.litfoto.com/holgatoycamera.html), an internationally-renowned photographer.

Holga Camera Models

There were eight models of Holga camera, each one only varying slightly from the others: The Holga 120S, the original Holga, where most of the problems originated; The Holga 120N, an updated model with a tripod mount and bulb exposure mode; The Holga 120SF, basically the same as the Holga 120S, except with a flash, The Holga 120GN, A Holga 120N with a glass lens instead of plastic; The Holga 120FN, a Holga 120N that has a flash, The Holga 120GFN - A Holga 120N with a flash and a glass lens, the Holga 120CFN, a Holga 120N with a color flash and The Holga 120GCFN, a Holga 120N with a glass lens and a color flash.