Product Description

Take a tour of the burgeoning world of toy cameras and low-tech photography with Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity. Whether youre an experienced enthusiast or toy camera neophyte, youll find Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity chock full of tantalizing tips, fun facts and, of course, absolutely striking photographs taken with the lowest tech and simplest tools around.

I got me a Holga. Now What?
Holgas need a little TLC before theyre ready to go out in the world and start snapping. Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity digs through all the different Holga models available, lays out thier advantages and quirks and helps you get up to speed on all the prep youll need to do to jump in on the toy-camera revolution.

What should I Feed my Holga?
Holgas, Dianas, other toy cameras can use many types of film. Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity, lays all their pros and cons on the line letting you get some images you want, and some you could just never imagine.

Can Holga come out to play?
Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity will help you steer your way through all the details and quirks of taking wonderful and weird pictures with your toy camera. Well explore possible subjects and the best way to shoot them and play with all sorts of techniques from vignetting, to multiple exposures, to panoramas, close-ups, movement, night photography, flare, flash, color and more.

For the Intrepid Holga-ographer
For the Holga master, weve diagramed and described advanced toy camera modifications and introduce you to a variety of problems, solutions and inventions born from toy cameras limitations.

What Next?
From negatives to prints or pixels, we help you navigate your post-shooting choices.

Dont Forget
The Diana, Banner, Action Sampler, Photo Blaster, and Lensbaby are all toy cameras with their own loveable qualities. Well look beyond the Holga to show a whole wide world of toys.

Artists Artists in this book include:
Michael Ackerman
Jonathan Bailey
Eric Havelock-Baillie
James Balog
Betsy Bell
Susan Bowen
Laura Burlton
David Burnett
Nancy Burson
Perry Dilbeck
Jill Enfield
Annette Fournet
Megan Green
Wesley Kennedy
Teru Kuwayama
Mary Ann Lynch
Anne Arden McDonald
Daniel Miller
Ted Orland
Robert Owen
Becky Ramotowski
Nancy Rexroth
Francisco Mata Rosas
Richard Ross
Franco Salmoiraghi
Michael Sherwin
Harvey Stein
Gordon Stettinius
Mark Sink
Kurt Smith
Sandy Sorlien
Pauline St. Denis
;-p r a b u!

*The first toy camera guide written by the internationally known "Holga Queen"
*Full color, fabulous images illustrate what can be done with toys, for fun or professionally
*Step-by-step examples clearly explain how techniques are achieved

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78443 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-02
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.60 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Synopsis
Take a tour of the burgeoning world of toy cameras and low-tech photography with "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity". Whether you're an experienced enthusiast or toy camera neophyte, you'll find "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity" chock full of tantalizing tips, fun facts and, of course, absolutely striking photographs taken with the lowest tech and simplest tools around. I got me a Holga. Now What? Holgas need a little TLC before they're ready to go out in the world and start snapping. "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity" digs through all the different Holga models available, lays out thier advantages and quirks and helps you get up to speed on all the prep youll need to do to jump in on the toy-camera revolution.What should I Feed my Holga? Holgas, Dianas, other toy cameras can use many types of film. "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity", lays all their pros and cons on the line letting you get some images you want, and some you could just never imagine. Can Holga come out to play? "Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity" will help you steer your way through all the details and quirks of taking wonderful and weird pictures with your toy camera.

We'll explore possible subjects and the best way to shoot them and play with all sorts of techniques from vignetting, to multiple exposures, to panoramas, close-ups, movement, night photography, flare, flash, color and more. For the intrepid Holga-ographer or for the Holga master, we've diagramed and described advanced toy camera modifications and introduce you to a variety of problems, solutions and inventions born from toy cameras limitations.What Next? From negatives to prints or pixels, we help you navigate your post-shooting choices. Dont forget the Diana, Banner, Action Sampler, Photo Blaster, and Lensbaby are all toy cameras with their own loveable qualities. We'll look beyond the Holga to show a whole wide world of toys.Artists in this book include: Michael Ackerman, Jonathan Bailey, Eric Havelock-Baillie, James Balog, Betsy Bell, Susan Bowen, Laura Burlton, David Burnett, Nancy Burson, Perry Dilbeck, Jill Enfield, Annette Fournet, Megan Green, Wesley Kennedy, Teru Kuwayama, Mary Ann Lynch, Anne Arden McDonald, Daniel Miller, Ted Orland, Robert Owen, Becky Ramotowski, Nancy Rexroth, Francisco Mata Rosas, Richard Ross, Franco Salmoiraghi, Michael Sherwin, Harvey Stein, Gordon Stettinius, Mark Sink, Kurt Smith, Sandy Sorlien, and Pauline St.

Denis - p r a b u! It is the first toy camera guide written by the internationally known "Holga Queen". Full color, fabulous images illustrate what can be done with toys, for fun or professionally. It includes step-by-step examples that clearly explain how techniques are achieved.

About the Author
Michelle Bates has been playing with Holgas since 1991. Since then, she has used these plastic cameras for everything from fine-art to editorial to commercial photography. Her work has won several awards and been published on numerous web magazines, included in toy cameras exhibitions worldwide, and printed in many magazines. She has had solo shows in the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles and Israel.
Bates has been teaching toy camera workshops since 1998, and currently teaches at the Photographic Center Northwest, the Julia Dean Workshops in Los Angeles, and at the International Center of Photography in New York. She also guest lectures nationwide, and was a featured speaker at the Society for Photographic Education's NW regional conference in 2005.
Currently, Michelle Bates is a member of the Advisory Board of Photographic Professionals of Freestyle Photographic Supply.
With her history of creating toy camera imagery and activity in the national and international toy camera communities for well over a decade, Michelle Bates is a well-known and respected name in the field.

Customer Reviews

A manual for toy camera lovers
'Plastic Cameras' begins by introducing you to the history of plastic cameras, and how they've come to develop an almost cult status amongst photography students and fine-artists.

After the brief history lesson, there are portfolios for 23 different photographers who use plastic cameras on a regular basis. The images and artists displayed are well chosen and interesting to see.

The book then dives into the real meat and potatoes of what you need to know about plastic cameras. From this point onwards, the information is mostly centered towards Holgas, but is sometimes relevant to other cameras (e.g. Diana, Fujipet etc). The author begins with the basics - film choice, loading/unloading of film etc, but then quickly moves on to more advanced topics such as modifying your Holga.

The final chapter concerns the array of options available to you once you've shot your roll of film. The author talks about both traditional darkroom based skills and modern Photoshop and digital imagery techniques. The author does not go into too much detail in this section, as there are a plethora of books dealing specifically with this.

Bates's style of writing is concise and somewhat technical, yet I feel she explains everything clearly enough that anyone would be able to understand. They layout of the book is pleasant with colourful pages and plenty example images. Finally the book is rounded off with a comprehensive list of related Holga websites and publications.

'Plastic Cameras' offers a great deal of information for newcomers, but I still believe that even experienced Holga users may find this book interesting. I have been using Holgas for a while now and I run one of the most popular Holga web resources. I found the book delightful and would recommend it to any plastic fanatic!