Here is information about the Holga medium format toy camera.
I am hoping for two things:
1) People will either get the reference or take the time to look it up
2) People will understand the processing in relation to the subject. (I.e. I tried to make my picture of my Holga look like it was taken with a Holga)
For shooting, the biggest key was lighting. When shooting with the Holga you center you subject because everything outside of center starts getting blurry. So if I wanted replicate the Holga effect/experience, I had to deliberately shoot dead center.
Somewhat intentionally, I actually set the aperture to f/11. With the Holga you have f/8 or f/11...or both if it doesn't work properly. Don't ask.
Processing:
Export from Capture on Pro to TIFF
In PSP XI
Square crop
Channel Mixer Layer
Levels Adjustment Layer
Time Machine (Box Camera)
Radial Blur (zoom, strength 2%, protect center 33%)
Two passes of radial blur would have made it more authentic but some might not appreciate the whole Holga retro-avant garde look. (I made that last term up myself...I think).
post challenge:
So it appears most people didn't get it. So be it. The people who did get it appear to have enjoyed it.
Here is same shot without processing except for the crop
Statistics
Place: 127 out of 137 Avg (all users): 4.7484 Avg (commenters): 5.1538 Avg (participants): 4.5781 Avg (non-participants): 4.8632 Views since voting: 769 Views during voting: 270 Votes: 159 Comments: 14 Favorites: 1 (view)
Overall, you met the challenge. I think, though, the subtlety of what you were trying to accomplish may have been missed. In the digital age, holgas and their "look" is virtually obsolete, or at best, largely unknown. Also, I think many pictures in this challenge (mine included) were a bit "ebayish." They weren't necessarily "bad," per se, but they were a bit unintriguing, simply because there was no context to help establish a "story" for the camera. One thing that *might* have helped your composition would be to have it less centered, or to have a lower perspective of it.
I am wondering if a different background would have helped you. The red, to me, is more interesting, but in keeping with the characteristics of the camera that it appeared you were trying to keep, it may have been interesting if you could have found an older part of town or something like that to have as a backdrop.
That said, because of your shot, I feel a bit more educated about the history of photography. :)
now, I'm guessing by the title that this is purposfully out of focus, odd contrast and hints of light leaks.... if not, then it could use work cleaning it up. Unfortunately for you, I bet most voters will not get it.
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