Light Leak Chronicles

I’m a librarian, which means I can’t help but keep records even when I’m shooting film. Whether I’m loading a Holga, experimenting with pinhole photography, or finally putting a “new-to-me” Nikkormat through its paces, I take meticulous notes on every roll I shoot. Not because I think I’m precious about my process, but because film photography rewards attention, patience, and memory and I don’t always develop my film right away. This post is a look at the system I’ve built to track my rolls, organize my notes, and make sense of what actually works (and what definitely doesn’t). Let's start with what information I gather and the system I used to keep track of film rolls. Here is where I have landed as far as keeping up with what I've shot, when, and where. This, I have already learned, helps because I don't always develop in the right after I shoot. #brokelibrarianmoney  DATE STARTED: When I start the roll DATE ENDED: When I finish the roll DEVELOPED: When I finally get it d...

Before I knew what I was doing, I bought a Zeiss Ikon camera that had been converted into a pinhole and started shooting. Quickly I found it's big brother, literally, on eBay and got to experimenting. Given that pinhole photography is technically a light leak, I'm including it here.  What you see here is from, at least according to my notes, the first roll I took, thus my first attempts at pinhole photography. Using a the smaller  Zeiss Ikon , I shot a roll of Arista EDU Ultra 400 Black and White film at various exposure times on the bulb setting using a shutter plunger.  My notes read " THE USUAL SUSPECTS", which is a corner table I have in my room. On it sits two watercolors (a shrimp boat which you see, and a creek side which you don't) my grandmother did and a pothos plant, which you see sticking up. I have used these as a testing photo trying different angles, exposure times, and lighting. Thanks to some awesome folks on Facebook, I have learned the heavy vig...

Here's what I got back from a roll of Ilford Delta 100 Professional Black and White Negative Film shot with one of my trust Holga 120N cameras. These are just two more examples of me grabbing some film that I do not know much about, throwing it in a Holga camera, and then trying to make something look cool. When you are clueless, you don't know what's wrong.  Of the leaks I got from this roll, this one adds the most. There is a ton of information on this,  but you can orient yourself in the shot. From my notes, I gather this was a close up on my plants sitting on the porch rail (this was taken in July) in natural lighting. By no means is this completely abstract but the light leak gives it a little flare.  At first it was hard to determine if this was a landscape or portrait orientation shot. My notes say, CLOSE UP OF PLANTS. But the straight lines made me think, siding on my apartment. Should that be the case, the leaves would be weirdly situated. Looking at it for aw...

Lately, the interwebs have been feeding me photography videos that are relentlessly negative about a familiar set of targets: cheap film (which somehow isn’t cheap once you’re done), thrift-store camera finds (old, dusty, and allegedly useless), and now—most recently—the Holga.  At first I almost wrote all this off as just an aesthetic thing. Maybe there’s a subset of photographers who simply enjoy trashing everything. It’s their right—they can poopoo whatever they want. Then after an hour or so of these, I was ready to agree with this video , and the others like it. Cheap film is trash . Thrifted cameras are a waste of time and money. Holgas are stupid.  One existential crisis later, I took a step back and started asking a few questions. I landed on three that feel worth asking every time one of these videos pops up: What are you expecting? What is your experience? Why are you doing this? Putting words in these vloggers’ mouths, it seems like they’re expecting too much fr...