So, I’m happy to say I have finally crossed one of my 2011 goals of the list: to shoot a wedding entirely with my Holga!
It’s not uncommon for us digital photographers to come home from a wedding with thousands of images, a collection of shutter-happy moments of beautiful couples on the happiest day of their lives. As I’ve recently inherited some of my grandfathers cameras, it got me thinking about how special photography was to them, and how expensive a hobby it was even then (they’d be happy to know that nothing has changed in that department!). But, most of all was thinking about them waiting for the perfect moment to snap one frame, sometimes even taking months to finish a roll of film.
So, there was my challenge: to wait. To observe, anticipate a moment and capture it… with only my Holga & Diana cameras and 5 rolls of 120 film (60 frames for a whole wedding). The second part of the challenge was to find a wedding to shoot! Luckily for me, Boston has a kick a$$ group of talented & collaborative photographers and I was able to tag along with Shang Chen Photography on Jen & Joel’s wedding at The Barn at Gibbet Hill for 60 frames of 120 film awesomeness!
There was a lot of experimenting, not only in technique, but in film speed. I decided to try two rolls of 3200 speed film for inside… fail. Major fail. But that was all part of the learning! Next time I’ll play around with flash inside. But the 800 speed Kodak Portra & 400 speed Ilford black & white were great.
Okay, let’s dive in. Here are some of my favorites from the day. I did have my D700 with me so that I could snap some comparison images film vs. digital. They are two completely different looks….
{Holga | Portra 800}
{D700 | ISO 800 | 50mm | f/3.5 | 1/3200 sec }
{Holga | Porta 800}
{Holga | Porta 800}
{D700 | ISO 800 | 50mm | f/3.5 | 1/1200 sec on the left & 1/3200 sec on the right}
{Holga | Porta 800}
{Holga | Ilford 400}
{D700 | ISO 800 | 50mm | f/3.5 | 1/400 sec }
{Holga | Porta 800}
{D700 | ISO 800 | 50mm | f/3.5 | 1/640 sec }
{Holga | Porta 800}
{Holga | Porta 800}
Jen & Joel love to travel & I just loved all the personal details they pulled together with Pink Orchid Weddings!
{Holga | Porta 800}
{D700 | ISO 1600 | 50mm | f/3.5 | 1/125 sec – for both }
{Holga | Porta 800}
{Holga | Iford 400}
{Diana | Ilford 400}
{Diana | Ilford 400}
This is definitely something that I would LOVE to do again in the future! Another huge thank you to Shang for letting me tag along and to Jen & Joel for sharing your day with me!
Happy Monday! xo Suz
