Holga Project Update
**The Art of Photography: Exploring Hogga Projects with Ted Forbes**
Welcome back to another episode of *The Art of Photography*. My name is Ted Forbes, and today I want to dive deeper into our ongoing Hogga projects. If you’re not familiar with what we’re doing this summer, be sure to check out the last episode for a detailed breakdown. The essence of this project is simple: it’s like a chain letter for photography. We’ve created a website—*theartofphotography.tv*—that outlines all the details for our summer project. All you need to do is sign up and be willing to participate.
Currently, I have 10 Hoggas that are traveling around the world. They’re in some pretty crazy places: New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, England, and several locations in the United States. The goal of this project is to create a community-based initiative where viewers of the show can collaborate and share their work.
---
### Expanding on the Hogga Project Philosophy
While we won’t spend the entire summer discussing Hogga projects, I want to emphasize why we’re doing this and what makes it so important. There are two main reasons for this project:
1. **Simplicity of the Camera**: Hoggas are basic cameras with very limited controls. The idea is to challenge you to think beyond the camera’s capabilities and focus on elements like composition, lighting, and perspective. With no zoom lens or autofocus, you have to move your feet, find interesting angles, and truly engage with your surroundings.
2. **Community Building**: This project is about more than just photography; it’s about building a community. When I started this podcast, I never imagined the connections we’d make with viewers. Whether it’s through meetups like our Art of Photography event in London or through the Hogga projects, meeting people who share a passion for photography has been one of the most meaningful aspects of this journey.
---
### The Success and Challenges of the Project
I’m thrilled to report that the response to the Hogga project has been overwhelming. After sending out the first tweet about it, we received 100 responses within just 24 hours! To date, over 500 people have expressed interest in participating. Our goal is to culminate this effort in a book and explore other creative projects along the way.
However, success comes with its own set of challenges. Mailing cameras across the world can take up to two weeks, especially from the U.S. Additionally, many of our European audience members are on vacation for about five weeks during the summer, which makes coordinating the project a bit more complex. Despite these hurdles, I encourage you not to let them discourage you from signing up.
---
### Regional Grouping and Support
If you’re interested in participating, keep an eye out for updates on regional groupings. For example, if we have two Hoggas in Japan but need one more, we’ll prioritize participants who can help us reach that goal. This approach ensures that everyone has a chance to contribute and be part of the project.
To support the initiative, I’ve set up a donate button on our website. While donations aren’t required to participate, they are greatly appreciated as they cover expenses like film processing, postage, and chemicals. So far, about 10-20 people have contributed, and your generosity is helping us keep this project moving forward.
---
### Encouraging Participation
I also encourage you to start your own Hogga groups. Whether you shoot a roll of film yourself or share the camera with others, every contribution helps us reach our goal of 500 participants. By doing so, we can collectively create a unique archive of images that reflect the diverse perspectives of our community.
---
### Exploring Different Types of Hoggas
In today’s episode, I’d like to showcase some of the different types of Hoggas that people have offered or modified. While we’re keeping things consistent by using standard Hoggas for the project, there are some incredible variations out there:
1. **Modified Hoggas**: My personal camera has been modified by Randy at *holamods.com*. It includes features like a cable release for long exposures and a step ring for neutral density filters. These modifications make it easier to experiment with creative techniques.
2. **Stereo Hoggas**: This is a stereo version of the camera, which creates 3D images. While you need a special viewer to see them, I typically shoot side-by-side images using the lens cap as a makeshift tool.
3. **Pinhole Hoggas**: Another fascinating variation is the pinhole camera, where the lens has been removed and replaced with a tiny hole. This creates unique effects and offers a different perspective on the world.
---
### Drawing Inspiration from Michael Kenna
Finally, I’d like to highlight a recent interview in *Black & White Photography* magazine with Michael Kenna. While he shoots with high-end equipment, his work emphasizes simplicity, composition, and a minimalistic approach to photography. These principles are just as applicable when using a Hogga camera.
---
### Conclusion and Call to Action
I’m incredibly excited about the direction this project is taking and the potential it has to bring our community together. If you haven’t already, I urge you to sign up for the Hogga project on *theartofphotography.tv*. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or just starting out, this initiative offers a unique opportunity to grow your skills and connect with others who share your passion.
If you have any suggestions, questions, or feedback, feel free to reach out through our website or email. And if you’re able to contribute financially, please consider donating to help us cover the costs of film, processing, and postage.
Thank you for being a part of this journey. We’ll see you next time on *The Art of Photography*.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enjoin us now on Flickr at flickr.com groups artof photography hey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes and today I want to talk a little bit more about hogga projects now if you're not familiar with what we're doing this summer with with our current state of hogga projects go check out the last episode uh the gist and the small breakdown is is you can think of it kind of like a chain letter for photography and what we're doing is we have a website so if you go to the art of photography. TV you'll see all the details for the summer project and basically all you need to do is sign up and be willing to participate and I've got 10 hogas that I'm sending around the world all 10 are out right now and they're in all kinds of crazy places I've got a Hogan in New Zealand I've got one in Australia I've got one in the Netherlands I've got two in England anyway the list goes on uh I've got several in the United States right now and the whole concept is to do a Comm Community project with viewers of the show and if you'd like to participate and you want more details check out the last episode uh but I want to expand on that a little bit today and I promise we're won't spend the entire summer talking about holos but I want to get the point across as to why we're doing this project and what the most important part of it is um also note that I do an audio podcast some of you know uh with my friend wde Griffith it's not an audio version of this podcast it's completely different podcast I've had some confusion uh on that uh and it it gives us a vehicle to talk longer on these topics um the video show generally keep to 15 minutes and under uh for various reasons mainly due to bandwidth uh but the audio show we expand on that some more and I talked a lot about this week of some of the philosophy behind doing a hogga projects and you know what that entails uh but there two main reasons first of all it's just a basic camera with very limited controls and the whole idea is to get you to not worry about what's on the camera but to start thinking a little deeper about elements of Photography such as composition um you know there's no zoom lens on here there's no autofocus so you got to think about those things what do you want the photo to look like uh you can't just stand Zoom around till you find an interesting angle say in landscape and shoot it requires you to actually move your feet get the better angle get the light better uh you know look for something interesting that's maybe not as obvious so I think the hogo are really great in that sense it's just to practice and get your chops and get your thinking in kind of a different uh mindset I think it's a really wonderful thing the other thing uh that and I think this is probably even more important about the hogga projects is I wanted to do something that was Community Based okay and and by that I mean you know when I started the podcast you know you start a podcast and you get a little bit successful and you're looking at your stats and stuff but the more meaningful moments to me uh in the three years that I've done this cast is when I've actually met people who view the show whether I run into them or we did a hogum or hog we did a Art of Photography Meetup in London last year and those kinds of things where you actually meet people and realize that you have common interests and bonds and you're all into photography and interesting things to share with one another I think is really important and I know this isn't ideal but it's a step closer to that um I think it's also really cool to get everybody around the world involved in a project that relates to this podcast um just a couple things I want to talk about about hogga projects first off um it's nice to be a victim of your own success and I think I've certainly witnessed that in the last month here since we announced these first and the deal is this uh when I sent the first tweet out and put the podcast out we had 100 responses within 24 hours which was amazing I've got 10 cameras ready to send them out uh to date I've got about 500 people that are interested in doing this and we're going to culminate in a book and and try some things along the way uh but a couple things first of all I don't think we're going to restrict ourselves to just the summer on this I'm going to let it go as long as it needs to go so you know if it needs to go another eight months or something like that then we'll allow for that um couple things I didn't consider is one how long it takes just to mail a camera across the world first class and sometimes from the US it can take up to two weeks for people to get them uh another nice problem to have is is a lot of our audience in Europe um take very nice vacations and know how to live their Liv and uh are gone for about 5 weeks out of the summer which is totally cool but I just didn't put that into perspective when we plan the project so I'm trying to plan around vacations and stuff but it makes it a little harder to get to people um like I said 500 is a very ambitious number to try to get to everybody but don't let that discourage you from signing up uh you never know I am grouping people regionally so sometimes like for instance right now I need one more in Japan and so I've got two if if I get one more to sign up then great I can put a set there so I can bump you up in the order um as far as things go like that uh so anyway so uh it's nice to be able to do this now I promise I I really rarely ever do this um the other problem we've had with the success is the expense that's we've kind of occurred and by we I mean me and the mouse in my pocket uh have occurred uh in terms of setting up the projects their cameras to buy right now I have 10 I really like to get 20 more so I can have more being sent out uh with each camera I send out there's postage I have to absorb with it uh plus there's film which isn't cheap and there's processing for color and then chemicals if I'm doing the black and white here so anyway it's a lot to kind of uh take in I do have a donate button and of course you it's not required that you donate to participate in the project I'll still find a way to make this happen either way uh but if you would like to consider donating it would be greatly appreciated I've had about uh 10 or 20 people somewhere in there uh give me some donations so far and it's really helped it's gone towards film processing postage all that wonderful stuff I have some good ideas on flicker people have talked about uh the possibility of uh you know selling raffle tickets or something and I could give the cameras away at the end of the project problem with that which is a great idea and we could certainly do that I'm I'm totally open to that uh but the problem is I got to get from point A to point B first and that's Point C it's after the whole projects are over so we'll see how that works uh so anyway some more stuff we're still working on the parameters of the project how we can expand it how we can make it better another thing that I want to encourage people to do is that if you have a hoga already um start your own hogga group you can either shoot a roll a film yourself and send it to me or you can find a couple other people to share the camera with pass it along get everybody to fill up the exposures on the roll send it to me I'll do the processing for you um and we'll certainly include you on the website and in the book and all that good stuff so there's nothing wrong with doing that um I highly um would encourage that actually it'll help get through the 500 a little easier um the other deal too is uh and I want to show you a couple different kinds of hogus today um I've had some people offer some other cheap plastic cameras and I'm kind of keeping it hogas just to keep a consistency with everybody the whole idea is one camera with many voices so that's kind of one way of thinking about it um if you do want to purchase a hogga the ones that I purchased for the project I got off am they're just stock hogas um nothing fancy in fact that's the idea is you don't want to get caught up in the camera it's just to show the voices of the people using the camera and uh a couple fancy hogas that you can do if you're so inclined is this is the hogga that I personally shoot on and it's a u it's an older one that's been modified by Randy at hogga mods and so if you check out holam mods.com it's got a couple things that are really nice like if you want to do long exposures at night it has a um I've got a cable release and and you can actually do that on a stock Hogan now this is just an older one so it's got some fancy stuff the uh lens has been modified so you can focus a little closer in and I put a step ring on there so you can use uh neutral density filters if you need to darken the subject a little bit um so that's one idea a couple others that are really pretty interesting uh this was a gift that was given to me a while back this is one crazy camera this is a stereo hogga uh which actually uh there's a couple ways you can use this I typically uh because of the fact you know if you're going to share online you have to have a stereo viewer to look at this right and so since it's a stereo hoga typically what I'll do is use the lens cap and I'll take two pictures pictures in advance and so I just shoot it side by side but it I think this is a totally awesome fun camera to have uh they're not real cheap but they are totally cool uh and then finally the other thing that you can do is get and this is another one from Randy at hoga mods but this is a pin hogga and the lens has been removed and it's now a pinhole camera it has a wider angle to it and this one actually has a um a weight a waist level finder in it so you look down to focus and shoot and all that stuff um and then last the one other thing I want I know this is kind of a hodge podge episode here and we've been talking a lot about a lot of stuff um and I've mentioned this magazine on the show before this is uh one that comes out of England it's called black and white photography and I I pulled this off the news stand yesterday because there's some things that relate to our project in it and there's a wonderful interview in here with Michael Kenna and I have covered Michael Kenna on the podcast before and he is an incredible photographer uh British guy and he shoots these just really awesome landscapes and I'm not going to you know do the painful let's show some uh images without repositioning the camera thing uh but what I you can take away from Ken's work now he's not shooting on a hogga he's shooting on a very expensive hustle blood but just the sense of composition the Simplicity to it the minimal aspects of it uh the point of view the angle all those kinds of things these are really wonderful things to consider uh when you're thinking about photography and what you're going to do uh with the hogas um so anyway those are just a couple things to bear in mind uh we're going to get back into more of a regular routine I want to get back into talking about black and white photography uh some digital stuff uh in the next month here but I wanted to spend one more more day today talking about hogga projects cuz I think it's really important I'm really excited uh if you've got any suggestions or anything feel free to jump on the website send me an email let me know uh sign up if you haven't and uh once again I could really uh appreciate uh donations that come in on this because like I said it's gotten a little more expensive than I thought it would be originally but uh anyway once again we'll see you next time this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watchingjoin us now on Flickr at flickr.com groups artof photography hey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes and today I want to talk a little bit more about hogga projects now if you're not familiar with what we're doing this summer with with our current state of hogga projects go check out the last episode uh the gist and the small breakdown is is you can think of it kind of like a chain letter for photography and what we're doing is we have a website so if you go to the art of photography. TV you'll see all the details for the summer project and basically all you need to do is sign up and be willing to participate and I've got 10 hogas that I'm sending around the world all 10 are out right now and they're in all kinds of crazy places I've got a Hogan in New Zealand I've got one in Australia I've got one in the Netherlands I've got two in England anyway the list goes on uh I've got several in the United States right now and the whole concept is to do a Comm Community project with viewers of the show and if you'd like to participate and you want more details check out the last episode uh but I want to expand on that a little bit today and I promise we're won't spend the entire summer talking about holos but I want to get the point across as to why we're doing this project and what the most important part of it is um also note that I do an audio podcast some of you know uh with my friend wde Griffith it's not an audio version of this podcast it's completely different podcast I've had some confusion uh on that uh and it it gives us a vehicle to talk longer on these topics um the video show generally keep to 15 minutes and under uh for various reasons mainly due to bandwidth uh but the audio show we expand on that some more and I talked a lot about this week of some of the philosophy behind doing a hogga projects and you know what that entails uh but there two main reasons first of all it's just a basic camera with very limited controls and the whole idea is to get you to not worry about what's on the camera but to start thinking a little deeper about elements of Photography such as composition um you know there's no zoom lens on here there's no autofocus so you got to think about those things what do you want the photo to look like uh you can't just stand Zoom around till you find an interesting angle say in landscape and shoot it requires you to actually move your feet get the better angle get the light better uh you know look for something interesting that's maybe not as obvious so I think the hogo are really great in that sense it's just to practice and get your chops and get your thinking in kind of a different uh mindset I think it's a really wonderful thing the other thing uh that and I think this is probably even more important about the hogga projects is I wanted to do something that was Community Based okay and and by that I mean you know when I started the podcast you know you start a podcast and you get a little bit successful and you're looking at your stats and stuff but the more meaningful moments to me uh in the three years that I've done this cast is when I've actually met people who view the show whether I run into them or we did a hogum or hog we did a Art of Photography Meetup in London last year and those kinds of things where you actually meet people and realize that you have common interests and bonds and you're all into photography and interesting things to share with one another I think is really important and I know this isn't ideal but it's a step closer to that um I think it's also really cool to get everybody around the world involved in a project that relates to this podcast um just a couple things I want to talk about about hogga projects first off um it's nice to be a victim of your own success and I think I've certainly witnessed that in the last month here since we announced these first and the deal is this uh when I sent the first tweet out and put the podcast out we had 100 responses within 24 hours which was amazing I've got 10 cameras ready to send them out uh to date I've got about 500 people that are interested in doing this and we're going to culminate in a book and and try some things along the way uh but a couple things first of all I don't think we're going to restrict ourselves to just the summer on this I'm going to let it go as long as it needs to go so you know if it needs to go another eight months or something like that then we'll allow for that um couple things I didn't consider is one how long it takes just to mail a camera across the world first class and sometimes from the US it can take up to two weeks for people to get them uh another nice problem to have is is a lot of our audience in Europe um take very nice vacations and know how to live their Liv and uh are gone for about 5 weeks out of the summer which is totally cool but I just didn't put that into perspective when we plan the project so I'm trying to plan around vacations and stuff but it makes it a little harder to get to people um like I said 500 is a very ambitious number to try to get to everybody but don't let that discourage you from signing up uh you never know I am grouping people regionally so sometimes like for instance right now I need one more in Japan and so I've got two if if I get one more to sign up then great I can put a set there so I can bump you up in the order um as far as things go like that uh so anyway so uh it's nice to be able to do this now I promise I I really rarely ever do this um the other problem we've had with the success is the expense that's we've kind of occurred and by we I mean me and the mouse in my pocket uh have occurred uh in terms of setting up the projects their cameras to buy right now I have 10 I really like to get 20 more so I can have more being sent out uh with each camera I send out there's postage I have to absorb with it uh plus there's film which isn't cheap and there's processing for color and then chemicals if I'm doing the black and white here so anyway it's a lot to kind of uh take in I do have a donate button and of course you it's not required that you donate to participate in the project I'll still find a way to make this happen either way uh but if you would like to consider donating it would be greatly appreciated I've had about uh 10 or 20 people somewhere in there uh give me some donations so far and it's really helped it's gone towards film processing postage all that wonderful stuff I have some good ideas on flicker people have talked about uh the possibility of uh you know selling raffle tickets or something and I could give the cameras away at the end of the project problem with that which is a great idea and we could certainly do that I'm I'm totally open to that uh but the problem is I got to get from point A to point B first and that's Point C it's after the whole projects are over so we'll see how that works uh so anyway some more stuff we're still working on the parameters of the project how we can expand it how we can make it better another thing that I want to encourage people to do is that if you have a hoga already um start your own hogga group you can either shoot a roll a film yourself and send it to me or you can find a couple other people to share the camera with pass it along get everybody to fill up the exposures on the roll send it to me I'll do the processing for you um and we'll certainly include you on the website and in the book and all that good stuff so there's nothing wrong with doing that um I highly um would encourage that actually it'll help get through the 500 a little easier um the other deal too is uh and I want to show you a couple different kinds of hogus today um I've had some people offer some other cheap plastic cameras and I'm kind of keeping it hogas just to keep a consistency with everybody the whole idea is one camera with many voices so that's kind of one way of thinking about it um if you do want to purchase a hogga the ones that I purchased for the project I got off am they're just stock hogas um nothing fancy in fact that's the idea is you don't want to get caught up in the camera it's just to show the voices of the people using the camera and uh a couple fancy hogas that you can do if you're so inclined is this is the hogga that I personally shoot on and it's a u it's an older one that's been modified by Randy at hogga mods and so if you check out holam mods.com it's got a couple things that are really nice like if you want to do long exposures at night it has a um I've got a cable release and and you can actually do that on a stock Hogan now this is just an older one so it's got some fancy stuff the uh lens has been modified so you can focus a little closer in and I put a step ring on there so you can use uh neutral density filters if you need to darken the subject a little bit um so that's one idea a couple others that are really pretty interesting uh this was a gift that was given to me a while back this is one crazy camera this is a stereo hogga uh which actually uh there's a couple ways you can use this I typically uh because of the fact you know if you're going to share online you have to have a stereo viewer to look at this right and so since it's a stereo hoga typically what I'll do is use the lens cap and I'll take two pictures pictures in advance and so I just shoot it side by side but it I think this is a totally awesome fun camera to have uh they're not real cheap but they are totally cool uh and then finally the other thing that you can do is get and this is another one from Randy at hoga mods but this is a pin hogga and the lens has been removed and it's now a pinhole camera it has a wider angle to it and this one actually has a um a weight a waist level finder in it so you look down to focus and shoot and all that stuff um and then last the one other thing I want I know this is kind of a hodge podge episode here and we've been talking a lot about a lot of stuff um and I've mentioned this magazine on the show before this is uh one that comes out of England it's called black and white photography and I I pulled this off the news stand yesterday because there's some things that relate to our project in it and there's a wonderful interview in here with Michael Kenna and I have covered Michael Kenna on the podcast before and he is an incredible photographer uh British guy and he shoots these just really awesome landscapes and I'm not going to you know do the painful let's show some uh images without repositioning the camera thing uh but what I you can take away from Ken's work now he's not shooting on a hogga he's shooting on a very expensive hustle blood but just the sense of composition the Simplicity to it the minimal aspects of it uh the point of view the angle all those kinds of things these are really wonderful things to consider uh when you're thinking about photography and what you're going to do uh with the hogas um so anyway those are just a couple things to bear in mind uh we're going to get back into more of a regular routine I want to get back into talking about black and white photography uh some digital stuff uh in the next month here but I wanted to spend one more more day today talking about hogga projects cuz I think it's really important I'm really excited uh if you've got any suggestions or anything feel free to jump on the website send me an email let me know uh sign up if you haven't and uh once again I could really uh appreciate uh donations that come in on this because like I said it's gotten a little more expensive than I thought it would be originally but uh anyway once again we'll see you next time this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching\n"