Surprise B&W Holga Film!

As it being my first post, I should probably introduce myself to you. 

I am Parisa, currently a Junior at Fremont High School, and a little over a year and a half ago, I started my own photo business. My main target market is my peers, high school and college students alike, but I have also done events, family shoots, product shots, and sports games. I am also a photographer for Flashback Media Productions, a small start-up photography company that is contracted with a few Pop Warner leagues. We shoot and film games, and allow the players to take photos in our photo-booth for custom player cards. 

Apart from working with my Canon Rebel, I thoroughly enjoy shooting 35mm film. I shoot on a variety of cameras; my most used are my Nikon N90 and my Lomo LC-A+, but I also like to tinker around with Holgas and disposable cameras. Once I have sufficient funds, I hope to delve into Medium Format.

Photography is a passion of mine as well as writing. The title of my blog alludes to the saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I will be supplementing all of my photo posts with some background of the photo, my day, and how the world is doing through my eyes.

I hope you enjoy keeping up with this blog as much as I do living it.

~

Shooting new film is always fun. Shooting a type of film you have no experience with is thrilling. It is also risky. Just this past week, I found some old Holga B&W film in my dresser drawer and, never having shot black and white before, I thought I'd pop it into my Nikon and play around with it. Now, Holga cameras are the cheapest toy cameras and are notorious for their toy plastic lenses that create a very dreamy and unpredictable effect to the photos. I had never heard of Holga actually making film, but from knowing that a Holga camera is supposed to lower image quality and be unique and possibly artsy, I had a hunch that the film was not "Top Quality" either. I had no idea what to expect, especially since I was shooting this film in a very nice SLR. 

Once the roll was finished, I was faced with the dilemma of "Where the hell do I get monochromatic film developed???" I get my regular color film developed at Walgreens down the street, but they dont do B&W because its not C-41 processing. Well, I do love the Darkroom.com for developing film and I have a voucher for a free development, but I just didnt want to have to wait so long for results. I decided to go to Keeble & Shuchats in Palo Alto because they seem to be knowledgeable and I could pick it up the next day! I dropped off my film Sunday picked up the results on Monday. I paid a whopping 16 bucks JUST for negatives and a disc... Normally I only pay about 8 bucks. And then I was pressured into buying expensive film that is really good quality, but that means I'll save it for a special occasion. So, I still have no film to shoot... I spent $30 total, and when I looked at the photos on the disc, I nearly cried. Holga film was worse quality than I thought and I spent $30 to develop it. It is super contrast-y and has grain like I've never seen before. Also, I dont know why I thought that it would be a good idea to shoot at dusk for a few frames, because what a waste of film and money... After looking at them for a bit, I started to see the good in them a bit. They are, indeed, very artsy and unique, and I did get some good shots in. Im just a bit bitter that I spent so much money on less-than breathtaking film. These are my favorites from the roll:

Now, after knowing what Ill be getting in to, I put my second roll of this Holga B&W film in my actual Holga, and will get that developed by sending it in to The Darkroom. This film isn't worth that much money. I am quite excited to see how this roll will turn out. I have a feeling that it's going to be interesting to say the least...

Happy Sunday!