holga week 2024

holga week 2024 was a blast.

an ode to the fantastically cheap medium format camera, holga week is run by mr. holga and headquartered at don’s used photo equipment in dallas, texas.

check out more information about holga week from the horse’s mouth here:

in short, every year on october 1-7, anyone from around the world is welcome to shoot their holga camera.

then, submissions open to the competition the month following holga week, so oct 8 – november 8.

there are a few categories like street, portrait, nature, pinhole and each participant can submit three photos.

the categories are judged and winners announced later in november.

there’s also a grand holga champion who wins a gold holga!

and i believe there is also a people’s choice award. so if you submitted photos, you can vote for the holga select winner (aforementioned people’s choice award).

fun, right?!?!

my holga week 2024

i shot way too many rolls this year, but i was in a good place with my holga, having chosen it for my frugal film project this year, with good results.

there were the two rolls of harman phoenix 200, one kodak gold 200, and one fpp wolfman!

most of the film was shot in two days, but i did take a few more on the others (bloody work getting in the way of my holga fun!).

first day, i headed up to western new hampshire, finding beautiful lakeside stops and interesting scenes across several small towns.

the other day, i found myself at one of my favorite festivals in autumn, the apple fest!

this is where i shot the two rolls of phoenix, quite easily with all the activity there.

most of the images were experimental double exposures.

i haven’t included my top three images i submitted in this post though. i’ll be doing another post after the competition is over on those!!

i need to scan these rolls of phoenix again because i believe i can get results i like better. these images are fun and punchy, but they are on the garrish side as well.

scanning is SO important with phoenix and quite a few photographers have had better results scanning at home than at their labs. it’s not the labs doing a poor job, it’s that their scanners are not set to scan phoenix which is a brand new film.

the holga week team created merch this year and i couldn’t have been more excited about it.

i promptly secured myself a t-shirt and coffee mug.

check it out here!

https://holgaweek.printify.me/products

so, tell me, how was your holga week?? what did you shoot, what are you submitting, etc?!

-m