I have not done one of these in a while. Well, I take that back, I have made quite a few, I just have not carried them through the whole process of scanning, blending and posting. I have a dozen or two that are at various stages of that three step process. So I figured I would sit down and put one through all the paces.

I guess part of it is the process to turn these images into postable material is fairly laborious and I am most interested in the part of the process that thinks up how to create them.

There are a couple of things in particular that I really enjoy about making these. One, they allow me to break the stereotype of the typical square or rectangular frame, which are sort of absurd shapes to be trying to fit the natural world into. Most of us just don't give it any thought because it is so reactionary at this point. Yes, I realize that even these more organic shapes are still built of squares, but hey it's a step in a different direction.

I am also fascinated by how these type of photos allow you to change perspective midway through their creation. I did one of Ruckel Falls that initially pointed this possibility out to me, where I was able to pivot as I photographed, much in a similar fashion as a swing lens panoramic would work. For this photo of Falls Creek Falls I photographed the lower portion of the falls from one vantage point, then climbed the hillside up to another, closer vantage of the upper tier and blended both sets of images to create a composite image that is impossible with a single photo. I am not saying this final product is brilliant, but I will stress that the possibilities this demonstrates are pretty darn interesting.

So here is my reminder to photographers out there, don't forget to think outside the square or rectangle, whichever camera you may have.

And happy St. Patrick's Day, this photo had lots of green in it, so I thought it mildly fitting. ;-)

Tags:   Falls Creek Falls Holga Holgarama stitched film photography Zeb Andrews photography waterfall moss nature outdoors Washington landscape plastic camera it's just a toy hiking Blue Moon Camera

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When it comes to these Holgaramas, form is probably my most important consideration. It is the desire to break out of the standard four sided rectangle that encourages me to make multiple frames in a mishmash like this. So whenever I set up to do one of these, before I even make the first frame the question I am asking and answering is what shape am I going to aim for? And of course, that question is at least partially answered by figuring out what my concept/subject is going to be, because the shape of the frame should be formed deliberately to support the content of the image, otherwise making odd shaped stitches ventures into the realm of gimmickry. That is when you are making weird shape stitches just for the sake of making weird shaped stitches.

I mention all this because part of me wishes I had exposed one more frame that included more of the falls itself, but adding that extra frame to the top middle would have changed the shape of the whole stitch into more of a blob instead of a rough pano and my subject here was the ice-encrusted bowl at the base of the falls, not the falls itself, per se. That and the otherworldly appearance these falls take on in the ice. So I was aiming for content of both the concrete and abstract nature - ice encrusted bowl and otherworldly feeling/appearance.

As photographers we have lots of tools at our disposal: shutter, aperture, ISO, white balance, focal length, exposure, saturation, sharpness, hue, contrast, cloning, layering, etc. One of the best lessons that I try to impart to beginning photographers is to become aware of just how many variables you can conceivably control yourself. With our super-advanced equipment sometimes it becomes easy to just go auto too much and take a lot of these tools for granted. Well these holgaramas are a reminder then that frame shape is another tool at our disposal and one many photographers take for granted and forget that not everything has to be rectangular or square. Think about it, how many times over the last 100, 500, even 1000 frames you have made have you stopped and asked yourself, "is rectangular/square really the best shape for what I am trying to photograph?" Probably not too many times. We just do it with little regard or conscious decision. Instead of fitting our frames to our subjects, we fit our subjects to our frames. In a sense, this is a bit backwards.

Something to keep in mind and chew on with the photographic part of your brain.

So, the next time you get out try setting up some multiple-photo stitches, particular composites where the pieces are not all going to line up evenly. Break out of that rectangular cage. Just remember to start with subject matter first. Figure that out and the shape tends to follow naturally.

Tags:   Holga 120FN Holgarama winter frozen icy Multnomah Falls Columbia River Gorge cold Oregon landscape stitch pano Pacific Northwest brrrr Kodak Ektar 100 at least with these images I can always remember which film I used

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On the backside of Glacier National Park, assuming one has wrapped south around it coming from the west, is a quiet and empty stretch of landscape. It is an area that involves lots of empty road, especially during the middle of winter. You'll find yourself with few companions other than the ever-present mountains, snowy forests and a biting wind. This image was made somewhere along a drive through that area, as we headed north, past the east side of Glacier, and toward the Canadian border. We'd go as far as Cardston before turning back west to make our way over to Waterton Lakes, which has since become one of my favorite places to be in the middle of winter. I think of them as quiet places but they are not really. Sure, the mountains don't make much sound but the wind is always moaning and if you are lucky, you may hearing the haunting howl of wolves in the distance. But maybe I think of them as quiet because that is how I feel internally when I am out in such places.

I have been catching up a bit on my backlog of Holgaramas this past week and this is one I put together quickly last night. It is a fairly simple one, only four frames worth. But I have never thought that many frames has ever been a requirement for these composites. I find the scenes, then use as many or as few frame as necessary to get what I want. Of course, what I wanted was initially a color image, hence the Kodak Ektar loaded in my Holga but upon seeing the assembled piece I liked it better in black and white.

Holga 120N
Kodak Ektar

Tags:   Holga 120N Kodak Ektar 100 Glacier National Park Montana Rocky Mountains film Holgarama winter landscape

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I may not be completely sold on this one yet, but I worked it up, so I figured I should at least post it. I like it alright, but I exposed two other rolls worth of Holgarama stuff down here, in color, and judging from the initial scans, I am going to end up liking one of them better. But this was the first one I made almost a week ago. A couple of noteworthy points regarding this process. First off, once again playing with the notion of framing and working outside of the standard rectangle and square. When you control the shape of your image, you can much more strongly play to the strengths of your content, which in this case was the canopy of blossoms. Had this been a full rectangle, I would have had to deal with unnecessary stuff in the lower corners.

Second, this was initially just four images in the layout that you see here, but I layered over a fifth image that was a 2 minute exposure hand held, which naturally was quite soft. I figured I would start to experiment a bit with combining these out of both sharp and soft images. One of the other Holgaramas I have yet to assemble from down here combines both day and night images, and I am looking forward seeing how that turns out.

When you realize the extent to which multiple images can be combined around the same content, you begin to realize just how limiting a single frame can be. There is a whole world out there waiting to be explored in this manner.

Tags:   holga holgarama PDX Portland cherry blossoms sakura Blue Moon Camera

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I have lived in Oregon for my entire adult life and never have I visited our only national park, so this was my first trip in celebration of my first Father's day. A while back on a trip to Yosemite I saw a photo by Ted Orland in the Ansel Adams gallery of a sunrise at Mono Lake that just blew my mind. Using his holga camera he had shot 8 frames of the sunrise and stitched them together in photoshop into a magnificent panoramic. A friend of mine, David Reamer (who has a picture or two in my Once in a Blue Moon group) once mentioned that for him there are three types of photos: the ones he took, the ones he wished he had taken, and the ones that just aren't very good. Ted Orland's shot fell very firmly into that second category.

About a month later I found out I had taken second place in a local camera shop's holga photography contest. Part of the prize was a new holga and a book on holga photography. Included in the book was a brief biography of none other than Ted Orland. So with his photography burning fresh in my mind I left my old holga at home and took my new holga to Crater Lake with just this project in mind. I thought about taking my old holga, which has been with me for years and is lovingly decorated with the album cover from Achtung Baby, but it has a very nasty tendency to flare heavily and I didn't want to end up with a few really good shots ruined by heavy flare on a couple of others, mostly likely the ones that would go smack in the middle of the panoramic.

Coming into Crater Lake from the north we stopped at this overlook immediately. It was the very first spot we could pull over and this was one of my first views of this lake which I have long wanted to see. I quickly loaded a roll of slide into my Holga with the intent to cross process seeing how blue the water was and knowing it would just be enhanced by the cross processed Kodak slide film. Click click click, it may have been the fastest I have ever gone through a roll of holga.

During the three days there I made two other panoramic series of the lake with my Holga. One was foiled by the bulb switch somehow activating itself, though I swear I made sure it was still on "N". The second was taken during the first of two sunrises we photographed, an amazing and absolutely mind-blowing sunrise, with a solid bank of clouds rolling over the western edge of the caldera and spilling across the lake while the sun rose to the east and tinged everything a golden yellow. That panoramic is still in the works and hopefully I can make something presentable of it. Until then, this is my first foray into this time of panoramic holga photography. So thanks to Ted Orland whose photography inspired this. Thanks too to Kodak who seems to make slide film that is better for cross processing than processing, sorry I guess a bit of bitterness still about the discontinuation of the UC films in 120. ;-) It is certainly not perfect and still a bit of a work in progress, but then again what photography isn't?

Tags:   holga panoramic Ted Orland cross process Crater Lake Oregon Pacific Northwest National Parks alternative overlapping lakes blue 120 AnAwesomeShot Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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