Holga - First Run!

I'm pretty pleased with the first two rolls!

Make up your own mind here: The Holga Challenge

I will be posting my favourite on my "daily" photo blog: Happiness A Day

Let me know what you think :)

My absolute favourite:

The Holga Challenge

For the last 8 months or so I have been so focused on using my Canon AE-1 that I haven't really used any of the other equipment that have either bought or been given. That goes for the Brownie Box Karli gave me for Christmas, my Canon DSLR, my smaller Canon, the Holga Karli gave me for Christmas... Coupled with the fact that I don't feel very inspired at the moment I have decided to set myself a new challenge. I have used the Holga once, and was quite happy with the results (I like the vignetted edges, and the way blue skies appear so brightly on the prints), and have been carrying it around in my bag for the past two months, taking random photos here and there. I now have one B&W film to develop and am running through a new colour one. I don't even remember what is on the film!
Beth gave me this book last week as my belated-birthday-get-well-soon present (I had a terrible cold): Fantastic Plastic Cameras and while I was looking at it last night I decided to start a new challenge - maybe it will give me inspiration for other ideas once I am finished. Over the next month I am going to continue to take random pictures with the Holga, focusing on non-posed portraits and all of the usual images that tend to catch my eye while I am walking around. Once I have finished I will have the prints developed once in a drugstore and then I will develop the ones I like best myself (will give me the chance to use the darkroom on Troutman St).

I may be disappointed - there is no real way to know if a photo is going to come out the way you want it to with these types of cameras, but that's what intrigues me. So let's see how it goes!

Here is some information on the Holga for anyone interested: Holga

A photo taken this Spring with my Holga:

New challenge - Russian

I like to set myself challenges. I like to make myself happy by beating these challenges.
The last one was a tough one, I quit smoking, and now I feel like I am past all the hurdles and running on safe ground, so it's time to focus on something new, to give myself a new challenge to accomplish within a set time frame.

I studied some Russian and long long time ago, back in my early teens. Sunday afternoons spent at a little old Russian lady's house in Seyssins, France. She didn't really speak any English or French, but she managed to teach us the basics: alphabet, grammar, basic speech. I could read Russian and make myself understood, but without continuing to practice, I don't remember anything.

I love Russian. I love the spoken language, the characters, the history of Russia, Russian literature. I always told myself that one day I would read Tolstoy in the original. Even the finest translation cannot beat reading a magnificent novel in the original.

Anyway... next challenge is to teach myself Russian. By next May I will have mastered the basic language (spoken and written), will be able to hold a conversation in Russian and will be able to read a book in Russian. Check back in at a later date for updates!

In the meantime: Счастье
(I google translated that).