Photographers Blog

A Holga view of 9/11

By Shannon Stapleton

The 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center has been causing me some anxiety for some time now.

We were told that magazines, newspapers and all other outlets for pictures regarding the 9/11 attacks would need to be filed and completed by mid-summer for deadlines. For a long time I didn’t cherish the thought of covering another anniversary let alone trying to find new ways to illustrate something that for some time I have been trying to avoid. Having been there first hand on that dark day in history I truly dislike having to go down there at all and usually do my best to avoid World Trade Center site area.

It brings back bad memories and I am not a fan of how it has become such a tourist stop when they visit New York. I truly understand the significance of the day and why people would want to come but looking up at the sky or at a fence covering a big hole in the ground is something I will never understand. As jaded as that may sound I will say that once all the politics, union negotiations and property disputes were settled, they have, and continue with time running out, made significant progress for the Ground Zero memorial. Ten years to figure that out seems to me like a long time but who am I.

Remember the days of black and white film?

Jim Young

Jan 13, 2009 17:00 EST

Do you remember the days of black and white film? Life before digital and the preview screen? How about shooting one frame per minute?

I have made several trips with U.S. President George W. Bush to his ranch in Crawford, Texas over the last couple of years.

Crawford is a small, sleepy town, population 705, a place where time has seemed to have passed them by. There are no hotels, one small flashing traffic light, and definitely not a Starbucks to be found.

A Holga is a $25 toy, plastic, medium format rangefinder camera with one fixed exposure, and I have been using it for about 7 years. I brought some 120 Tri-x film on a visit when we had a couple days with no planned coverage of the President, just to kill some time and have some fun. But I realized that a lot of the images that I was trying to make had more of a horizontal look than the traditional square 6×6 images produced by the Holga, and thought they might work better as “sprocket” pix. If you put 35mm film in a Holga, it will expose the entire negative, including the edges numbers and sprocket holes.  I thought it might be an interesting photo project to shoot some views of this town whose notoriety is home of the “Western White House” and the impact his presence would have on their town. I wanted the images to have an old dusty, historical look to it. And with Bush nearing the end of his presidency, it might be interesting to make a picture package on the town that will probably slip back into its quiet world, probably losing its most famous resident when he retires down the road to Dallas.

Shooting with a Holga is a very patient process. The viewfinder is nowhere near the image you end up with, especially with sprocket photographs. The angle is much wider than it looks, having to correct for the parallax error, mentally blocking out the top and bottom thirds for the 35 mm film….ughhh, never mind, click! F/8 @ 1/100th second. Turn the winder knob 36 clicks, and you are ready for the next frame. Sometimes that is the best thing to do with a Holga, just trip the shutter and move on. Don’t over analyze it. It is after all… a toy camera!

But what I love about it is the simplicity of it all. Film, plastic lens, and a black box.  The basics of photography.  It’s not 10 fps, 15 second photo ops, or rocket science for that matter. The anticipation of the film to come back from the lab days later, getting a loupe and seeing what happened. Isn’t what this is all about? A simple image from a moment in time. Trying to create something from nothing, and having some fun in the process. If you don’t slow down every now and then, the world just might pass you by…..