HOLGA

It's considered a toy camera...or a family camera made for working-class Chinese folks to snap shots of family events. And it uses a hard-to-find film: 120 or "medium format."

The Holga was first distributed the year NASA launched its first space shuttle. And (not unlike the space shuttle) it never really caught on anywhere other than its country of origin.

The camera is known for its lo-fi aesthetic. Precision and high resolution is not what you get in a Holga photograph. The plastic camera body is known for light leaks, while its internal mechanisms are unreliable to say the least.

But.

It’s fun to see what comes of an afternoon of “from the hip,” Holga shooting. Expect something surreal, otherworldly, odd, mysterious.

Expect a surprise.

[Photographer David Burnett won top prize in a White House News Photographers’ Association event in 2001 for this foreboding Holga snap of Al Gore.]