Holga Blog

I’ll get it out of the way first: I love film. There, I said it. I feel better.

Hi, my name is Jim and I am a toy camera junkie. I have taken them apart, remade them, made new ones and even (gasp!) attached a holga lens to my digital SLR. Film is my first photographic love, but I do understand the need for digital: people are lazy. Don’t get me wrong, i am probably the laziest man out there, ( i am sitting in my pjs, on a tuesday afternoon, at home, on the couch) but there is something to be said about planning your shots, developing the film and printing them. In other words, being involved from start to finish. Alright, time to get off the soapbox and tell you a little about myself.

I take pictures..lots of pictures. Most of my cameras are older then I am, with the exception of maybe 6. I love getting my hands dirty with fix, cyanotype and even the strange goo that comes off of an instant print when you do an emulsion lift. Very rarely will I leave the house without some form of camera. I am a completely hopeless photonerd. OK, so that tells you a little about what I like to do, but what about the man? Well, to start, I am a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a taco kept safe inside of a darkbag.

Right, so for real, I was educated at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), where the main stream was veterinary medicine and farming. Amongst all of this, they had a pretty sweet darkroom and I spent the better part of 4 years in it.  I still miss the late night print runs and the janitors coming in and kicking me out. From there, it has really grown out of control, I mean really out of control. I started out simply, with an AE-1, but that wasn’t enough. Exacta, Graflex, Rollei, Bronica, it kept snowballing. Then I discovered the toy camera and let me tell you, the problem became an issue, the issue an obsession and finally it all grew into an addiction.

Every now and then, I’ll come out of my film induced stupor  just long enough to teach basic photography at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, also known as SAIT, but then will quickly crawl back into it with renewed fervor. I also teach folks how to use their cameras better and how to set up darkrooms.

I am a full fledged photonerd. There is nothing that can be done.

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