Self-Portrait Experiment: Holga, Strobes, & Gels by Alec Pain

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
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Written by Alec Pain (Alastair Place)

My previous article on using a Holga with a flash showed you experiments using the built-in flash of the Holga GCFN and a Holga with a flash attached to the hotshoe.

This article follows up with a (slightly) more advanced approach. Using the Holga with a strobe. This is made possible – for me at least – by the addition of the Holga HSA-1 and a Sync cable.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
The Holga HSA-1 with a sync cable

Previous Holga and Strobe Examples

I’ve done a number of self-portraits with the Holga and strobes. Here’s some examples for you to compare. These used an umbrella to help control the harsher light – but the gels themselves did help to take away some of the harshness.

For the first one, see my article on how to shoot Holgaramas.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Getting ready for Holga Week.
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
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My Setup

Below you can see a picture of my setup in my kitchen. I used a white wall as a background with the lights set up on either side of me around head height.

I am lucky to own two Godox AD300 strobe lights – but a secondhand strobe would work just as well. Using Sellotape, I stuck different colored gels in front of each light.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film

I’ve also bought the Reflector & Accessory kit, which is probably safer (but these have yet to arrive!).

I wasn’t using the gels for a long period of time, but do note the need to keep an eye on them. It is more likely that they will fall off than catch fire, but it depends on your strobe.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film

I then measured the light using my digital camera (see John Adams III’s article). The Holga’s default settings are somewhere between f8 and f11 with a shutter speed of either 1/100 or 1/125, depending on where you read the information.  I usually set my digital camera to f9 and a shutter speed of 1/125.

I was using Kodak Gold, so I also set my camera’s ISO to 200.

You can measure with a light meter if you don’t want to feel like you are “cheating,” but I find this an excellent method to accurately expose your images. You would then adjust the controls on the strobe for less or more light.

I also have a very small backroom office (see picture below), and whilst it is fairly tight, there’s just about enough room for me to take self-portraits. I set up a black muslin backdrop behind myself for this.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film

White Background Results

The kitchen shots worked best for me. The blue’s came out more vibrant.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Triple exposure with red and blue gels.
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Triple exposure with red and blue gels.
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
A single exposure with red and green gels.

If you have read my previous article on using the Holga’s built-in flash, I guess the difference is in the ability to vary the distance and angle from the flash to gain slightly more shadow.

That said, I love the GCFN shot almost as much as the one with the strobe.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga 120N with Blue (possibly green!) and Red gels.

Black Background Results

I tried a by-now-ubiquitous Holgarama, where you can see the effects that each color had on my face – I used pink, green, and yellow gels along with the blue and red.

The blue gel seems to have either been unexposed or just not strong enough.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Pain-o-rama.

Here’s some more of the results:

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film

In Conclusion

The Holga isn’t as easy for creating self portraits as say a Nikon N50 (see my article here), where you have autofocus and a self-timer. The Holga SL-1 selfie lens does help to view yourself and where you are in the frame, but these are now very rare.

I’m still trying to find a longer shutter release cable for wider shots. The Holgon (a modified camera by @helicord_camera) does allow you to trigger your Holga electronically – and it does work well. The slight issue is that you still need to press the button to release the shutter on your phone and therefore you need to practice pressing it whilst looking at the camera!

I learnt a lot from these two practice rolls: I particularly liked the shadows which you could create with having the strobes at different distances when using a strobe.

I think there’s a great deal of creative options to look at. For instance, I’m interested in adding drag and some movement to these and you know where I’ll start – the Shoot It With Film archives as usual – with these guides on shutter drag and camera movement.

Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film
Holga 120N triple exposure against a black background with red filter x 2 and one blue filter.
Holga Self Portraits with Strobes by Alec Pain on Shoot It With Film

Thank you so much, Alec! Alec is a regular contributor here at Shoot It With Film, and be sure to check out his other articles, like Creating EBS Self-Portraits and Finding Photography Inspiration Where You Live.

You can also check out more of his work on Instagram.

Leave your questions about shooting self-portraits with strobes and gels below in the comments!

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Alec Pain

Alec Pain (AKA Alastair Place) is a pinhole and experimental photographer and a regular contributor for Shoot It With Film. Find his other articles here, such as How to Shoot Holgaramas and Finding Photography Inspiration Where You Live.

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Blog Comments

These are very lackluster . I think if you used a model it would have been better. I like the synch setup though. I have portable hot shoes that have a sync cord hook up at the end of it. I use it on my cameras that don’t have a built in pc port.

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