Toying in Photography
A Flak Photo Essay

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This week, Flak Photo features a series of images produced by "toy camera" photographers in support of an exhibit that opens today, November 17. The show is called Toy Polloy.

Shooting with toy cameras is quite possibly one of oddest niches of photography. We take the brunt of a lot of jokes and snickering when people see us whip out our plastic cameras wrapped up in black tape. But the average light-hearted plastic camera lover will just smile right back and return a couple of new jokes that maybe you haven't heard before.

Toy cameras might seem to be a joke or a handicap to many, but for the plastic fuzzy followers, the cameras feed directly into our liberation and creativity. And when people see some of the photos shot through such simple cameras by creative people, most are astonished.

	FLAK PHOTO To view photographs from Toy Polloy, click here.

The definition of a "toy" depends upon the person you ask. A typical toy camera shooter's toy box would contain a Holga, a Diana (or one of her many "clone" cameras), a cheaply-made 35 mm panoramic camera, and maybe a "sampler" camera that takes four exposures in a short timed sequence which ends up on one frame. There are many many more, but as the list goes on, it reaches the blurry line that divides "toy" from "non-toy." Most cameras are made from plastic (including the lens), are often poorly constructed, rarely battery operated, and usually need a lot of tinkering.

So why would anyone embrace this strange obsession to begin with? One of the more interesting things I've heard over the years is that countless photographers hit a great creative block, and when they come across a toy camera or see the kind of photos they take, they often feel liberated. They are simple to pack and you don't have to be dependent on so many electronics — all you have to do is focus on your subject and click!

Shooting with toy cameras is also the cheapest way to explore and learn film photography. A typical Holga camera will sell for around $20. Spend a few bucks more, and you can get Randy at www.holgamods.com to add some much needed "tweaks" to the flaw-filled Holga. Then it's just a matter of wrapping it up in some hockey tape to keep out the light leaks (unless you like that kind of thing, and some of us do!) and head out with a couple of rolls of medium format film to start shooting.

Photographers used to high-tech equipment will end up with something unfamiliar. The film edges will be uneven, there might be some light leaks or heavy vignetting in the corners and worst of all you'll most likely get some blur. Yes, that's right, I said the four letter word: "blur." It's also known as fuzzy, out-of-focus or "please stop it I'm feeling quite nauseated!"

One of my favourite aspects of toy camera photography is the community of hundreds if not thousands of photographers from all over the world that you can share your photos and ideas with. The internet has given us the ability to create online meeting grounds to hang out and have show-and-tell.

What makes the community of toy camera photographers unique is their selflessness, generosity and lack of ego. If we do get into real critiques of our photos, one can often comment on just how "craptastic" a photo can be, or how great the vignetting is, or how in the heck did you manage to get so much blur! Everyone is willing to share, there really isn't a lot of coveting that goes on, most people are willing to share their secret recipes for home-baked lenses, or how to get some more blur in your photos.

One of the hangouts of choice is www.toycamera.com. It's a website that is inclusive, noncompetitive and free to participate in. The site features over 150 galleries by over 100 photographers. The real action, however, is on our forum. Hundreds of people hook into the forum and post their photos for feedback, ask questions, or simply share in some friendly banter and laughter.

The group is always coming up with ideas to keep us all busy with creative projects — holiday print exchanges, charity auctions and artist trading cards, to name a few. We even created our own holiday — "World Toy Camera Day," which falls on the third Saturday in October every year. On World Toy Camera Day we encourage photographers to leave their high-tech cameras at home and celebrate with us by shooting as many photos on this one day as you can, then share your results with the rest of the group. We then create a gallery of all the favorites and post it on www.toycamera.com. We have prizes which are given out by www.holgamods.com as well as donations from many of the toy camera shooters.

The same group at www.toycamera.com also started Light Leaks magazine, a quarterly print publication that showcases toy cameras, the photographers behind them and the photos created with them.

The writers and contributors work on a volunteer basis. Photo contributors don't receive free copies, and they don't pollute the magazine with advertisements. Part of the proceeds go back into the community to fund sponsorships for photographers' exhibits. They recently funded the construction of 42 frames for a gallery of international photographers called Toy Polloy.

Toy camera photography is a great hobby — or artform — that you can take as lightly or seriously as you desire. It won't cost you very much to try it, and you'll probably meet some really interesting and friendly people in the process. Be prepared to get that snicker when you show off your plastic cameras in public, but also get ready to let them know where they can pick up one for themselves when they see how much fun you have with yours.

Michael Barnes is the head of design and operations for Light Leaks magazine.

Essay produced by Tread and Andy Adams