Self-Portrait Experiment Using a Holga & Flash by Alec Pain

Written by Alec Pain (Alastair Place)

For this experiment, I decided to try some self-portraits on a Holga with different flash setups.

There are a number of ways to use a flash with a Holga:

Holga (GC)FN with In-Built Flash

If you purchase a Holga with an F in its name, you have a built in flash on top of the camera as seen in the images above.

There are a couple of options: a simple “white” flash with a plastic (FN) or a glass lens (GFN); or a flash which has four different colors: White, Red, Blue and Yellow, with either a plastic (CFN) or a glass lens (GCFN).

For the purposes of this article, I’ve played with the GCFN and a roll of Kodak Gold.

Find the Holga GCFN on Amazon.

Holga (GC)N with Flash Attached to the Hot Shoe

If you don’t own a Holga with a flash, you can also buy a Holga flash or attach a Speedlight to the hot shoe.

For the purposes of these experiments, I used a Holga 15B flash which I found on eBay. It uses two AA batteries.

The current flash for Holga appears to be a Holga 12MFC, which I also own and has a similar functionality: with Blue, Yellow, Red, and Green filters. A Transparent filter is also included to dampen the flash if needed.

Beware the 12MFC’s battery compartment (it uses one AA battery) can be a little temperamental – with the metal elements needing a push so that the battery can work.

Find the Holga 120N and the Holga 12S Flash on Amazon.

Using a Selfie Lens and Calculating Exposure & Distance

I used a Holga “selfie” lens on the front of my Holga – it is also now out of production but well worth it if you can find one on eBay or on carousell.com. It means you can be closer and see a mirror image of what you are taking.

There’s an Exposure table (distance measurement) on the back of the Holga external flashes. This can help you to determine how far away you can be from them.

Now these aren’t particularly accurate because if you have an ISO of 200 it would mean you would need to have your Holga set on its “rainy” setting of F8 and would need to be 2 meters away (7 ft) using the Holga 12MFC or 2.7 meters away (9 ft.) using the Holga 15B to fill in the subject with flash.

If you look at the ISO on the left and the f-stop, this seems a little incongruous as the Holga generally only has two f stops: f8 (in cloudy conditions) and f11 (in sunny conditions). This can be changed where the lens is but, again, in true Holga style, these tend to be approximate and often don’t work!

With the selfie lens I was 400-600mm away which is more like 2ft, and I didn’t over-expose my shots. A standard Holga range (using the GCFN) is around 3ft for a portrait.

Holga with a Speedlight or a Strobe

A Speedlight can be very expensive, and it’s not guaranteed to work with a Holga hot shoe. There is an accessory which you can buy (the Holga HAS-1), but this is like all things Holga-accessory-related now very difficult to find.

As you can see, it does enable you (along with a Sync cable) to use a Speedlight. This will also hook you up to a strobe, but I’ll look at this in a future article.

The Results

Below are some examples taken with the Holga GCFN on a black background in a fairly dark room.

The same shots with a Holga 120GN with a Holga 15B are below – the extra filter is a little bonus for variety – I guess you could always add one of these to your Holga GCFN:

One of the main issues I have with the Holga is getting a decent white background. The flash tends to extenuate the black corners.

Here’s the two camera’s flashes with a white wall behind:

Double & Triple Exposures

The flashes come into their own with double exposures. Despite my facial expressions, I think my favorite combination is blue and red or green and red.

Holgaramas

Here are a few examples of some Holgaramas against a white wall with the Red, Blue, and Yellow flash filter. You can read more about how I create Holgaramas here.

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 Finding Photography Inspiration Where You Live and The Holga 135 Pan: Getting to Know Your Camera.

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

Leave your questions about shooting self-portraits with a flash on your Holga 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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