When I was given the chance to do a story about a tour of the Hanford site, I wanted to try something a little different, something to evoke the history and grand scale of the site. Hanford was built in WWII, before computers to the multitude of exact calculations needed to both build and safely run the world’s first nuclear reactor. I thought it was fitting to step away from the digital cameras we use everyday on our assignments and try something a little less technologically advanced.
Okay, a lot less technologically advanced. The Holga is a plastic toy camera with minimal controls. The shutter is a simple wire spring and the film moves from one reel to the next and can’t be rewound without using a dark bag. Exposure and focus are mainly left up to guesswork. I’ve used it for one other story at the YHR, shooting dreamy images of the state fair in 2007, and explain what it brought to that process here.
For this shoot, I decided to shoot 35 mm film. Both because I’d never tried it before and because it’s easier to process. I could just take it to a photo lab. Because the Holga is designed to shoot 120mm film, I had to modify the film holders a bit, using the high-tech method of stuffing packing peanuts around the reel of film and jiggling it to make sure it will stay in place. I adjusted the 120 film reel with some rubber bands.
I did a little bit of research and found out that 1.5 rotations of the film winding knob will give plenty of space between exposures, and (after ruining a test roll), covered the red window on the back (used to wind 120 film) with a couple pieces of cardboard and lots of black tape. Then I just packed a dark bag and several rolls of film and set off to shoot.
One of the limitations of shooting with this was the limitations of exposure. 400 ISO film is great for daylight, but didn’t give me much indoors. I found myself wishing I had toted along my tripod to shoot the face of the reactor, which I could have “built up” an exposure by exposing the film over and over and over without winding the film or moving the camera. I also could have used a flash on some of the smaller spaces I shot inside and that would have helped the contrast of the image.
Lastly, I converted the digital files from the flatbed scan to black and white. I did this for two reasons — it seemed to fit the historic flavor I was trying to convey with the story and also the color bars on the bottom of the film, above and below the sprocket holes were too visually distracting. Converted to black and white, I felt they contributed to the image, but in color, they just dominated the image.
This was a fun way to tackle this story and a simple way to have some photographic fun. If you’re interested in giving it a try here are the resources I used:
I bought my Holga at Freestyle Photographic Supplies, the simplest version of the camera cost about $28.
You can buy film and get it developed at many local shops if you shoot regular color (not slide, not b&w) film.
I had the negatives scanned at ProPhoto supply. I just mailed them in a stiff cardboard mailer and paid over the phone. They scanned them and sent them back in about a week. Their price list is on their website.
There are also tons of Holga galleries out there and work on Flicker as well, so you can always find inspiration!
Picture This | seattletimes.com blog
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