Saturday, October 02, 2004
Regarding my Holga pictures... When my excitement for the Holga started to wain was when I started printing on real photo paper. In 2002 and some of 2003 I was scanning my negatives and printing on a Epson 1280 with carbon based inks on mat paper. The holga images looked very nice with this combination. There was a subtleness that seams to be missing now. Also I was able to fix some of the imperfections from light leaks and scratches on the negatives, that are very common, using Photoshop. Holga photos printed this way also look a slight bit sharper, which stands to reason since I was scanning with a Nikon Supercool 8000. Maybe the scanner was able to pull more information from the negative.
This is definitely not to say that I'll be going back to that method to create my Holga pics. If it's not happening with my current setup it ain't happening.
While it was real nice to be able to print my photos on an ink jet printer without all the chemicals and setup and having a darkroom. I am very happy I regressed back to the traditional way of doing things. While I like shooting more than the darkroom work, I have many fond memories from the different darkrooms I've worked in through the years: hiding screwed up prints in the ceiling tiles so we wouldn't get in trouble for wasting paper in high school; keeping beer cold in the water holding tray for all night printing at the School of the Art Institue of Chicago; and contact printing hundreds of botanical studies and very old glass negatives at the Field Museum.
I read what people are going through with their experimentations with digital - looking for the next best thing, finding the right printer and inks and paper and cameras. Business has figured out how to take the computer/software model of upgrade upgrad upgrade and fit it into photography.
This is definitely not to say that I'll be going back to that method to create my Holga pics. If it's not happening with my current setup it ain't happening.
While it was real nice to be able to print my photos on an ink jet printer without all the chemicals and setup and having a darkroom. I am very happy I regressed back to the traditional way of doing things. While I like shooting more than the darkroom work, I have many fond memories from the different darkrooms I've worked in through the years: hiding screwed up prints in the ceiling tiles so we wouldn't get in trouble for wasting paper in high school; keeping beer cold in the water holding tray for all night printing at the School of the Art Institue of Chicago; and contact printing hundreds of botanical studies and very old glass negatives at the Field Museum.
I read what people are going through with their experimentations with digital - looking for the next best thing, finding the right printer and inks and paper and cameras. Business has figured out how to take the computer/software model of upgrade upgrad upgrade and fit it into photography.
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