These images were taken with a Holga toy camera. It is a medium format, analogue camera made of plastic and is extremely susceptible to light leaks. The camera shakes every time you take a photograph and there are no batteries or a flash. The joy of this camera is that it is extremely manual – you can take double exposures (intentionally and often accidentally, if you forget to wind the film on) and you can also take long exposure shots. The viewfinder is terrible and does not reflect what is being captured through the lens. It is because of all these flaws that I love the Holga – the results are unpredictable, moody and the light leaks produce dark edges on the photographs, you really don’t know what you’re going to get until the film is developed. The beauty of analogue photography is the anticipation and the physical realisation of your images, in print form and negative form which leaves scope for further experimentation. The other joy of the Holga camera, is that you can choose your format – it can be 6 x 6 or 6 x 4 and you will get either 12 or 16 shots respectively. I opted for the square, 6 x 6 format as this is the format my work often takes.
One of the things on my ‘to do list’ is to complete a darkroom course so that I can develop and print my own images and by doing so, have more creative control over the outcomes.