Why These Photos Were Made With A Toy Camera And The Wrong Size Film
For investigations editor John Hill’s series When No One Is Watching, about dysfunction in Hawaiʻi’s child welfare system, the photographer used a method that exploits imperfections for unexpected results.
When Executive Editor-In-Chief Amy Pyle brought this project to my attention, she asked how I could contribute visually to these heart-wrenching stories.
The first thing that came to mind were the innocent children. Their childhood lost to abuse. Play time might have been a luxury. And, if they had toys or sporting equipment, did they just have to make do with what they could salvage for a bit of exploration and imagination in their youth? What put a smile on their faces? What caused them to wonder in awe or excitement about the world? Or was all this stolen from their lives?
I had experimented with my plastic, medium-format Holga 120 film camera over the decades and decided this method would illustrate the fact that these keiki had reached maturity in an uncommon way.
This cheap, plastic toy camera is known for creating unexpected results. The imperfections of the Holga create light leaks, the plastic lens doesn’t focus very well and the shutter can be opened multiple times without advancing the film to a new, unexposed frame.
This is called Lomography — a lo-fi method to capture the unexpected with inexpensive analog equipment.
After I had been playing with the Holga for some time, a photo blog caught my attention using 35 mm film instead of the camera’s intended 120 film. I don’t remember who wrote it or shot the photos. But it was a picture of a red 1960s Ford Mustang contrasting against a bright blue sky and gray buildings framing the sides. The coolest thing to me was the exposure between the sprocket holes.
The placement of the sprocket holes will always be the surprise. Composition is mostly a guess since 35 mm film is smaller than 120 film and can float and move inside the Holga. The above photo worked out with composition and placement.
Hacking the Holga to shoot a different size film required some modifications. The internal frame for 120 film was removed. Foam was added to the top and bottom of the space to keep the film cartridge in place.
The Holga is loaded and ready to take some pictures … slowly.
Take one photo, then advance the film 34 clicks, or about one-and-a-half turns, to get a dozen photos on a roll of 36 exposures. This is a challenging pace when my daily cameras shoot nine frames per second.
After the film is shot, a Holga can’t rewind the film back into its light-proof canister like a traditional 35 mm film camera body. 120 film uses a lightproof paper backing, which protects it after the whole roll has been shot. The Holga was designed to shoot a roll of 120, then open the back to remove it without the need to rewind.
Instead the 35 mm must be rewound by hand, winding the spindle to pull the film back into its cartridge. This must be done in a lightproof changing bag in the absence of a darkroom.
Treehouse Photo Lab in Honolulu later processed the film and scanned the negatives. Removing dust and hair on a large flatbed scanning surface is difficult, employees there said.
I selected Ilford XP2 black-and-white film for the ease of processing the film. It’s a C41 process that is the same for most color film. The film is taped to a plastic card and run through a machine.
My preference would have been to shoot Kodak Tri-X or T-Max film if I had been able to process the film myself. I would have very much enjoyed getting back into the darkroom: rolling film onto metal reels in absolute darkness, filling the tank with chemicals to process, banging the tank against the side of the sink to agitate the chemicals against the film. Thinking about it brings back memories of the smell of photography chemicals searing my nostrils.
Another thing I take for granted is passing secure-digital (SD) media cards through airport X-ray machines. With 400 ISO film, I asked the TSA agents to hand inspect it to avoid fogging the film and ruining the images.
I saw the use of the wrong size film in a plastic toy camera as a metaphor for the lives of the children who were abused.
Some blossomed and showed the beauty of humanity, which is reflected between the sprocket holes. Meanwhile, the holes themselves reflect a void in the photograph and the boys’ lives.
