A broken camera can force you to see the world in a whole new way.
Imagine my disappointment on that first night in Barcelona, when some freakish electronic fritz made my Pentax unusable. I was spending a week and a half in Spain for TBEX, and I had tempered some of my ambivalence about the trip with the comfort that, at least, I would end up with good pictures.
I used to carry a back-up 35-mm body, but the beginning of this year was one of camera problems, and I had no back-up. The KMZ Start had kicked it a few weeks earlier. My back-up Pentax bodies proved themselves to be non-functioning.
All I had, besides a disposable underwater camera, was my Holga.
Okay, I figured. It’s not what I was planning on, but it’s something.
So I wandered around Girona, in Spain’s Costa Brava, shooting with my little plastic toy camera. The fellow bloggers on my trip had far more impressive-looking equipment: Go-Pros and hulking DSLRS. I had a plastic box that barely requires batteries and can only shoot 12 images before I have to switch rolls.
Perfect.
I shot the first half with Lomography Xpro Slide 200—those are the images drenched in acid green, and if you don’t know what Xpro is, check out this guide I wrote here—and the second half with regular Portra 400 negative film. These are just wisps of Girona. A slant of light here, a quick glance there. They are impressionistic, as often the images shot with the Holga are. That’s okay. I wouldn’t have seen the city like this if I’d shot it with any other camera.
Thank you to Visit Costa Brava for this trip through Girona. Opinions are my own, obviously.
No Comments