Holga photography is dreamy and beautiful. The camera is made entirely of plastic, even the lens is plastic. There are only one shutter speed and two aperture settings. The simplicity is the beauty of this camera. It’s also the biggest challenge.
I use a plastic film camera because it boils photography down to its simplest components: light and composition. That is a huge contrast to today’s digital photography. As a former photojournalist, I worked with digital photography since its very beginning. In comparison, plastic cameras are the simplest form of photography.
The limitations and simplicity of a plastic camera make photography new again for me. This simplicity has taught me a lot about photography and the way I see the world.
Learn Holga photography for yourself
I offer workshops on these wonderful plastic cameras. I supply the instruction, the camera, and the processing. Join me at one of my Holga photography workshops.
Cameron Gillie
Cameron has been practicing film photography for 30 years now at a professional level as a national award winning photojournalist and as a fine art photographer with my pinhole and Holga cameras. He mentored for several years under Herb Nelson teaching his film classes. Herb is an educator with 50 years of teaching darkroom skills at the college level. Herb is now retired, but Cameron is proud to be carrying on his legacy of bringing people into the “dark arts” as Herb is fond of saying.
Cameron is also a published author of two photography books. The first is entitled Around Wisco: Hiking the Ice Age Trail where he documented his hike of the entire 1200 mile Ice Age Trail. His second book is Ristad Farms: Grain Farming in the Red River Valley. Cameron spent and entire season on a farm in Minnesota documenting life on a modern farm.
The pinhole photography of Cameron was awarded many awards at art festivals and his film photography zine Small Towns – Big Spaces was acquired by the National Art Gallery Library in Washington D.C.
Cameron also teaches digital nature photography workshops as well.