In a digital world, there’s little room for the toy camera
Since first learning about the Holga I knew I wanted one. A sub-$20 camera that took 120 roll film was too good to pass up. David Burnett, noted freelance photojournalist won an award for an image of Al Gore on the campaign trail made with a Holga.
It's a camera with a cult-like following. Some hate it, others love it. I fall more into the later category, but I don't obsess over it. It's a fun toy and if I break it, I'm not out a whole heck of a lot.
When I discovered that Polaroid made a instant-film (peel-apart) back for the Holga, I knew I had died and gone to Holga-heaven. 120 film is increasingly difficult to get processed and scanning can only be done at either great expense or here at work. Instant access to images (as the shift to digital photography has shown) is a powerful draw.
And so for a little more than a year I've been using my Holga + Polaroid back (dubbed a "Holgaroid"). It's a great little camera, weighing very little, and producing images that are sometimes odd, sometimes interesting, and sometimes fascinating.
I found out today that, sadly, Polaroid is no longer producing the back for the Holga and, in fact, almost every online retailer I know of has stopped selling them. This puts the future of Type-80 peel-apart film into question as well. On the plus-side, ending bid values for the backs on ebay have shot up 200%. On the down-side, of course, the Holgaroid will begin to fade away into oblivion. When Polaroid stops selling Type-80 films (and they will eventually, of course), there will be no more film for these cameras. They'll become an odd footnote in the history of photography, like so many cameras before them.
This isn't an anti-digital rant, this is more a "difficult to accept change" lament. In the world of the film camera, the market had been saturated with choices for many years. Hundreds of point and shoot and SLR models to choose from with dozens of film types and styles. When the digital revolution began, it was clear that film would remain but as more and more a niche market. Fewer cameras, fewer films, but available. The Holgaroid, on the other hand, was completely unique in its style and (especially) price. Cameras using peel-apart films have generally been very expensive medium format and large format systems, requiring many thousands of dollars to buy into. The Holgaroid was an inexpensive way to indulge in instant film photography.
So, I must face the fact that the lifespan of my Holgaroid is far shorter than I had hoped. When I run out of my current supply of Type-80 film I doubt I'll order any more.
Anyway, for anyone interested in the types of images the Holga can produce, I have some Holgaroid photos online at flickr: