Jason Morrison
At some point in my time shooting film, I plan to have a better understanding of what I am doing to avoid getting a black roll of film. Sadly, that day is not here just yet. My first attempt at shooting LomoChrome Purple on the Canon A-1 resulted in a bad roll. There is at least a 100% chance I screwed it up. Not wanting to give up, and because some of the images I have seen shot with this film look so cool to me, I had to give it another shot.
But this time around, I would do it with the plastic fantastic, the Holga 120.
I have now shot two rolls of 120 on the Holga with this and each time I have loved the results I got back. First, shooting with the Holga means there isn’t a whole lot of thought put into the settings. Primarily because there aren’t many. It feels more like a point-and-shoot to me and that, coupled with the light leaks, is one of the many reasons I love the camera.
Shooting
If I am being honest here, one of the greatest aspects of shooting with the Holga is how easy it is to load and unload the film. Even with how prone I am to screw everything up, I have yet to botch this process. It’s a super lightweight camera to tote around as well.
The first roll was shot while on a weekend getaway to Pigeon Forge, TN with the final four frames shot close to home in Louisville, Kentucky. The second roll was shot in the Cleveland, Ohio area, Bay Village to be exact. I thought I had taken the entire roll, however, when I got home, I realized I still had a single exposure left, so I shot that at a local park. That final photo turned out to be one of my favorites.
Results
Roll #1:
Roll #2:
Developing
My go-to for developing film has been State Film Lab here in Louisville. They are usually swamped with orders, so check the website for lead times. They are usually really good with meeting the dates they provide. It isn’t like I am on deadline for this stuff anyway, just incredibly impatient.
When I first had medium format developed there, I inquired about the ability to leave in the frames and borders. At the time, they couldn’t do it, but now they can. This is a service offered via their digital contact sheets, something that nerds like me eat up.
Here are the two contact sheets for these rolls. These monsters are around 11520 x 14400 @240DPI and about 950MB in size.
I love seeing the entire roll laid out like that. This also shows you what was cropped for each exposure and the image as it came out of the camera, minus the few Lightroom tweaks I made.
With a few rolls of Purple under my belt, the next film on my wish list is Turquoise.
Further Reading
- LomoChrome Purple shop via Lomography
- LomoChrome Purple photo gallery via Lomography
- LomoChrome Purple gallery via Grainery
- How To Shoot Lomochrome Purple Film by Ashley Vaughn via Shoot It With Film
- The Pyrenees Mountain Range on Lomochrome Purple Film by Andrew Foster via Shoot It With Film