I learned yesterday that Holga is closing their doors. I thought that today I would post my first shots made with my Holga and talk about what it means to me.

It was a beautiful, sunny, December day on 2011. I decided to visit Blue Moon Camera And Machine to buy a Holga. I’d done a lot of research and decided that this was the first film camera I wanted to play with. I’d waffled on this decision for months. For some reason I was afraid to take the plunge. The siren song of film was calling me and I couldn’t deny it, but it took me a long time to follow. The day I bought my Holga was also my first visit to Blue Moon. It would be the first of many visits!

The person who sold me the Holga was the proprietor of Blue Moon himself, Jake Shivery. He helped me choose film and showed me how to load it and gave me advice on how to use it. I loaded it up with some Fuji Pro 400h and went out into the beautiful Portland December day and shot this photo

I went on to shoot a roll of Black and White film over Christmas. And many more rolls after that.

In fact, little did I know that my purchase of this camera would be the start of something big. The purchase of this camera opened me up to a whole wonderful world. If it wasn’t for this black hunk of plastic I wouldn’t be friends with all of these amazing, kind, and wonderful people all over the world. When I took the step to answer the siren call of film photography it changed my life. I am so glad I listened.

It is Thanksgiving today in America. I have a lot of things to be grateful for. But my little Holga is making me feel such gratitude for the film photography community, and the pinhole photography community. My life is so very much enriched because of all of you. Thank you.

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See the first shots from my Holga in this post.
See the second roll of film through my Holga in this post (I get a little bit philosophical).
See the the rest of my Holga shots here.