raku photography

exposed

OH Boy! I have a new camera, a Holga, called by some a toy camera but they've got it all wrong, this is photography FOR REAL! This is photography that allows for serendipitious elements to converge and dance themselves all over the film, creating an exciting and vital reprieve from the digital world. The Holga takes pretty pictures in "colour and black & white" on 120/medium format film. This simple beast consists of; a plastic shell with a spring-triggered shutter, a plastic lens, a rudimentary focusing ring, a fixed speed of about 1/100th of second (give or take a few seconds); a manual winding knob (which makes a splendid- plastic scritching against plastic noise), a shoe for a flash but no sync control for it, a viewfinder; a switch for sunny/cloudy conditions which does absolutely nothing since there is a single lens aperture of f/11; and a little window on the back to let you see frame counts....and that's it! No mega pixels, no image stabilization, no LCD screen...not even a battery!

The light leaks, over-lapped exposures, fuzzy border vignetting and other random variables make for what is best descibed as *RAKU PHOTOGRAPHY.

Open the Shutter and Let the Light in!

*Raku is an ancient Japanese method of firing clay with twigs, saw dust, pine needles and leaves which create unpredictable smoke patterns and spectacular crackled effects in the glazes.


holga dog