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Hi Paul, I try to follow your suggestions.
Probably, clearer for me if you can show me, if you want. Thank you.Marty, The Holga is a cheap plastic camera that loads 120 analog films. It has a crappy lens and you have limited settings. 1/100s is the ss. And you can usually choose the aperture between Sun and Cloudy. That’s it.
It produces to today’s standards “bad” images but as you will see, there are many people who are great fans of this type of photography.
You will need to develop (or have it developed) your 120 negative film roll. Then scan the negative or have it digitized.
It’s lots of fun!
https://www.holgaphotography.com/…seeing color issues is a skill that takes time to develop.
That is so true Beth. A long, long time ago, even before I went to Film school, I was an apprentice in one of the largest Dutch film companies. I was fortunate to be able to learn from all departments. One of the departments was the lab, where they developed, color-corrected, and printed the film (and did all the optical work).
We were working on a feature film, and they let me have a go at color correction. The way it was done in those days, was that we printed the first and last two frames
of EVERY shot in the movie and color-corrected the negative on a machine called the Hazeltine Color Film Analyzer.(If you have the first and last two frames of a shot you have a good chance you get a fair color balance for the whole shot).
Hazeltine reversed the negative into a positive image on a monitor.I corrected the entire film. Those TWO FRAMES of the entire film were printed from the negative on a positive stock. Once printed you could look at the result on film.
I was so proud of what I did. Then my lab mentor came to take a look.
He looked at those TWO FRAMES prints by hand, took a glass Cyan Filter, hovered it over the print to show me that the entire film was way too red. (and of course also magenta to the green and yellow corrections to the blue)It took me a long, long time to get a little bit better and now, 40 years on, I am still not very good at it.
But now the process is a bit easier digitally.
Marty, Patrick, my wife used to be a photographer working with Hasselblad and Nikon, and large format. When digital came, she had to switch to Canon EOS 5D (Mark I, the first one). She had to work in digital but she never liked digital. So she bought a Holga 120N plastic camera and kept working analog. She also has a crappy phone camera. The images she makes with the Holga and her crappy phone are amazing, which proves to me, as we all know, it’s not about the equipment. It’s about the eye, vision, creativity. And also, what we all know: The best camera in the world, is the camera that you have with you.
(Truth to be said, her phone images usually cannot be enlarged to very big prints. But who does that anyway, nowadays.)The images above of the garbage bin and Holocaust memorial are phone images with a fairly crappy camera. The bull is with my Fuji.
I looked at Amazon and those eclipse glasses look exactly what I had.
I understand your worries with your dad’s experience, but I would not worry about it with these glasses. The only thing they have to do is to act as an enormously strong ND filter. But since they do not have to be color-corrected/neutral they are not expensive to produce. And you are a sensible person, if you have the feeling they do not block the sun enough you can additionally squeeze your eyes.
Have a great eclipse!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=solar+eclipse+glasses+2024&crid=21M6XV1XRSV0A&sprefix=%2Caps%2C206&ref=nb_sb_ss_sx-trend-t-ps-d_2_0Marty, a partial Solar Eclipse looks nothing like a full eclipse because it stays dawn with a partial eclipse. What happens with a full eclipse, in the last 20 seconds it becomes night. The wind quiets down, the birds, everything. It is truly magical.
It works better when you film it because you can hear what happens.
Be prepared, you will be amazed!
Bicycles, Fresh from the Amsterdam Canals. Click for bigger.
Coot uses plastic for its nest. Nothing else is available to her.
That is storytelling packed in a stunning visual way! Congratulations.
Most importantly: Know your camera, in and out. That is something that you can learn. If you do not know your camera you will be lost.
A good painter knows his/her brushes, paint, and canvas, a good F1 driver knows his/hers (are there female F1 drivers?) car, engine, tires, and brakes, a good Chef knows his/her ingredients, stove, pans, and so on).
So knowing your gear is the basis, but that does not make you good at something.
The next thing is, story, location, situation, timing, composition, and light.
That means you have to be able to “see” and recognize a situation.
Creativity plays an important part. Try to think outside the box. Every image has been made already. Still, we make great “new” images every day because we find new ways of telling our stories.The least important is what kind of camera you have. Sure, you will (usually) not be able to shoot a great Football action shot with a crappy camera and a wide-angle lens. So in that case, you do need the right gear for the right purpose.
I know people with their Holga’s who make much better images than people with their Leica’s (Just for fun, look at the Leica Monochrome FB page (Camera and one lens about 10K). The crap that you see there is unbelievable.
And after that, take a look at the Holge FB page.
No, it’s not the gear. But we knew that already.Street Photography is not just pointing your lens and shoot a person or more persons (not that you need per definition people in a street shot). Below Street shot without people.
Just pointing your camera and click might get you a great shot (See the image of Ken, the (Dis)Mounted police cleaning up behind them, (Decisive Moment!)), but it usually needs more.A good street photo needs a clearly defined subject.
Start with looking. Look for a great location. (background). After that, you can start planning your shot. Ask yourself: What do you need to make this location a great background for your street shot? That can be leading lines, contrast, symmetry, negative space, well, anything that works in any image.
Or when the BG is so specific that you need a specific FG to get a juxtaposition (or addition) to the BG.You can also plan your setting, shutter speed, ISO and aperture for that shot.
Then you wait for the right person to pass by to make your image. That person will or might surprise you.Image below: People (my family) looking at the Holocaust Memorial in Amsterdam at the stones to commemorate their murdered grandparents in WOII.
I had the location, but needed people in it, on both sides of the walls.
This image here, I just knew someone would come and do something with the bull. But I could not have planned for this.
Right time, right place, right angle! Good shot. A tad more headroom would have made it a great shot.
Right time, right place, right angle! Great shot.
Hi Paul,
Great images.
You know me, I just do as if this is the ST.The first image can use a tad more room in front of the B. And the leaves are a tad noisy.
Here a sloppy edit:
And the second image is also great but the flower is so beautiful, that you have two heroes in the image. I suggest taking the leaf at the left bottom out and darkening the flower and the BG. In that case, your second B stands out.
Paul,
Don’t get me wrong. I greatly advocate using a title that throws the public a bit off. ( I do it all the time) So I have no problem with the title. Especially, after your clear explanation.
However, since this is the Shak Tank, we give criticisms when the execution can be better.
We all have the same problem. Almost any imaginable image has been made and on an extremely high level of quality and creativity.
That does not mean we should throw our photographic gear in the bin because everything has been done already and better that we can do it. No of course not.But we should strive for excellence.
You also have to ask yourself the question:
Who is/ are my public?
For whom do I make this image?Lots of possibilities.
1. Myself. That is easy. It does not matter what anyone else thinks about the image.
2. A specific target group. With this image, I can imagine the owner of the bike. Then it does not matter if that green thingy hangs out. (It does matter that the BG is smudgy)
3. General public. In this case, you will have to compete with all the excellent images out there. And IMHO, for the general public, the green thingy has to go and the execution has to be better.Hmm, a bit off-topic. Sorry….
Hi Tim, you confuse me with the title “Light Painting”. I was expecting something else.
I agree with Rob, what is the added value of a 7-shot composite?
And for me, it does not quite work. It should be perfect when you make a “beauty” shot, or Hero shot as we call it in the trade. IMHO there is too much smudge in the blacks which takes away from the Hero.
I would also try to clone out the green thingy hanging from the handlebar.
Here is a very quick and dirty edit (I cannot get it right because the image is so small (800kb)
