foto Priority

Melt - ©Simon Harsent

Simon Harsent has won numerous national and international advertising awards including Cannes Lions, One Show, Clio, D&AD, London International, and Australia’s first Cannes Grand Prix.

As one of the world’s most awarded photographers Simons’s work has also been featured in many national and international publications and is also included in the permanent collection at the Queensland Art Gallery and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. Simon was awarded Photographer of the year in 2008 at the Hall of Fame Awards in Singapore for his work on Levis.

In 2009 Simon completed his latest project Melt: Portrait of an iceberg, a study of Icebergs photographed off the coasts of both Newfoundland and Greenland.

Melt media release

“This portfolio begins with images of the massive icebergs as they enter Greenland’s Disco Bay from the Ilulissat Icefjord; it ends with the icebergs off the East Coast of Newfoundland, by which time they have travelled hundreds of miles, and have been so battered and broken down that they are little more than ghosts of what they once were” – Simon Harsent

I found his iceberg images absolutely amazing, the light, textures and sheer size of them are mind blowing.

Simons personal website
Portrait of an iceberg

By Jose Fernandez

Welcome to the wonderful world of the plastic camera. If you like surprises and an unusual look to your photos, the Holga may be a great addition to your kit.

So, what is a Holga? It’s a medium format camera that happens to be all plastic. Yes, even the lens is plastic. They are a very basic camera with one shutter speed of approximately 1/125 and bulb, two f/stops of approximately f/8 and 11, a 60mm PLASTIC lens with adjustable focusing, Built-in flash and uses 120 colour or black and white film.

You never know what you’re going to get with your Holga and no two Holga’s are the same. It’s a great camera to experiment with.

After trawling many Holga websites for the best deal, as well as checking out as many holga “fanatics” websites I could find, I finally ordered my first little toy, in fact is was the first film camera I had ever owned.

As soon as it arrived in the post, I ripped opened the box, loaded some film and grabbed some black tape, yes black tape and started sealing all the joins and cracks, anywhere where light could get in.

This camera is about fun, the unexpected, and the unusual. What you get is a look you can’t really achieve any other way and it is always a surprise to see your images when you get the prints or files back from the lab

It’s now been a couple of years since I first opened the box to my shiny (ok the plastic isn’t really that shiny) new Holga 120s, I haven’t used it in a while, but after writing this post, I think I have just inspired myself to roll on some Kodak 120 ultra colour 400 UC!

Oh and one word of advice – DON’T FORGET TO REMOVE THE LENS CAP!

Well known wedding photographer Graham Monro from GM Photographics has been known on occasion to pull out his holga, giving his clients the choice of something different.

Graham has a shiny new website where you can view all his fine art images, some of them using the plastic fantastic camera!

Checkout Grahams website for yourself at GM Photographics

For more information on the holga and an endless amount of reading and inspiration check out these websites dedicated to this little gem.
lomography
holgamods
Flickr
Holga Inspire

Jose