Toy Camera Workshop

Experience the fun of using a simple plastic camera to create unique, dreamlike images. In this class, you will use the Holga, a medium-format "toy" camera that liberates you from all things high-tech and automatic. These simple cameras, with only 3 aperture settings and 4 focus options, help you remember what it was you loved about photographing in the first place. These low-tech cameras offer unexpected results that render images that are less about literal documentation and are more like memories, or dreams half-remembered.

We'll look at work by photographers who rely on toy cameras for much of their photography. We'll learn how to exploit the eccentricities of toy cameras and how to best work in low-light situations. We'll also spend time the first day going out to photograph, and we'll have a chance to see and talk about our results on the second day.

This workshop is open to all levels of photographer (beginner, intermediate, master). For this class, you will be given a Holga to use. If you have your own toy cameras you'd like to bring, that's fine, too. All materials, a Holga camera and medium format film are included.

One-weekend workshop

Saturday & Sunday, 9am - 5pm

August 8 & 9

• A sample of your photographic work

None

• $375 + material and processing fee of $75

Diana Hooper Bloomfield: As a photographer, educator and curator, Diana has been engaging in photographic activities for 25 years. She specializes in pinhole photography and 19th century printing methods.

Her arresting images have won her numerous awards such as Project Grants from United Arts of Raleigh, NC and have been exhibited and published nationally and internationally, such as Qinghai International Photography Festival in China and in Pinhole Photography: Rediscovering a Historic Technique, by Eric Renner.

She lives and works in Ralegh, NC, where she teaches at NC State University and Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.