Hello and welcome, to one and all!

We here at *holga would like to take this opportunity to welcome of all the latest members to our ever-growing group. It's great to see that the *holga community on DA is thriving, from the emergence of new talent to the old work-horses still plying their trade.

As the work produced by our favourite piece of fantastic plastic is the essence of this group, we encourage all those who've recently joined to submit their work to the group. We strive to display a high-quality gallery of *holga work from around DA and we're keen to see what our members are producing. We do not feature every single deviation that gets sent to us, but if we like what we see, we'll do our best to put your art out there and help it get seen by the world.

On the subject of submissions, we have (finally) created a rejection notice that will be sent out to members of the club whose submissions to our gallery have been unsuccessful. Up until now, it's just been a case of you guys submitting and only finding out if your work has been rejected by seeing that it hasn't been featured - not very conjucive to either party, as I'm sure you'll agree. If you're unlucky enough to receive such a notice, don't despair! Some of the best holga shooters in the club have had them, and they are merely a vehicle to get to to take a good look at your work and see how it can be improved. We're happy to offer reasons why your mork has been unseuccessful if that has been the case.

Whilst we can't get this message to people who aren't members of the club, we'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to add any work that is featured here to their 's from the original art work that we link to. There's been a lot of work getting 'd on our submission of members work, and this is unfortunate as the original artist is not getting the kudos they deserve - members of the group have been doing this and they should really know better . The function is something we unfortunately cannot disable, so please, please visit the original piece of art before ing.

We hope you've enjoyed the feature above and we look forward to seeing your work in the near future.

Don't think: shoot!
*holga Admins.

Hello everyone,

We here at *holga hope you are all fighting fit and happy.

This is just a quick entry to inform everyone of a slight change in submissions policy.

As the club is currently operating with only two active admins. (real life is claiming the time of two of our number, but they're hoping to be back soon) and the club is receiving a lot of submissions at the moment, the workload is becoming quite overwhelming at times.

Submission editing was mentioned in the last journal, but some people are still sending in notes which contain 5+ submissions at a time. As a result, please only send notes with a maximum of 3 deviations only, please.

This is helping the current two admins. to keep things ticking over, plus it'll also give contributors a good exercise in picture editing.

Thanks very much for your patience.

Don't think; shoot!
*holga admins.

Hello!

*holga makes it's first journal entry of 2008, and we here on the admin. team would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very Happy New Year!

Hopefully 2008 is a year that finds you all making positive moves in your personal lives, and that it's a year of lots of photo taking.

We here at *holga would also like to take the opportunity to welcome the newest members to the group (hopefully you your time here with us) and for the continued support of existing members - we couldn't be doing this without the support of you all, so thank you. A special thanks also to =rakastajatar for providing us with a subscription.

To some quick admin. news, now:

*Nirka will very soon be upping sticks from the United States, to the beautiful country of France. I'm sure it will be an adventure that is both nerve-inducing and exciting as well, so from the rest of the admin. team and everyone else here at *holga, best of luck with the move!

We also have another member to welcome aboard our motley crew, so everyone put your hands together for *jierumi



In an effort to get to know a little about our newest fellow megalomaniac admin., we conducted a little interview with the man. There's also some examples of his work, too (we spoil you!):











In regards to membership, please remember that we only count you as a member (either active or passive) if you note us with a join request. Anyone who just adds us to their without getting in touch will be considered just a passive watcher, which people are more than welcome to do if they so wish.

As membership has grown and the good word about *holga spreads, we are receiving a large number of submissions. This is great and it's nice to see so many people out there and active with their holga's. It is our intention here at *holga to have a gallery filled with great work and we do our very best to ensure that the work that we feature is of a certain standard.

Recently, we have had to reject a greater proportion of work than we have done in the past, and we feel that now would be a good time to address the issue.

It is not our intention to put any one of you off from submitting work to the gallery. The vast majority of work we receive is of a very high standard, illustrating that our members use their holga's in very creative ways and continue to capture images that delight, perplex, touch and confound.

In the last month or so, we have been receiving notes with large numbers of images in them, and it feels that some people are merely submitting every shot that was taken on a roll and hoping for the best. What we would ask members to do (set aside 10m minutes if you can) is to have a look though the current gallery and get a 'feel' for the kind of work we like to feature. We are not wanting everyone to submit homogenous work as that would be very boring and the gallery would lack variety. Instead, we want you all to look at your images and be as critical of yourself as you can be before submitting. It's better to send us a submission filled with 2 cracking pieces (that you feel work) than it is to send us a note with 8 sub-par efforts. We do not want to dilute the gallery with quantity over quality.

As with all forms of art, it's very subjective - what works for one does not necessarily work for another. We're also conscious of the fact that entries are viewed and given the green light by just four individuals. We do endevour to be as subjective can be and to judge work on its merit, rather than letting our own preferences guide us.

We currently don't have a system to inform members of when their submissions have been rejected, but we shall look into changing that. If you feel upset that your work has been rejected or if you want to know why we have chosen to do so, then please get in touch with us, as we're happy to give you our reasons for doing so.

And in a final note on the subject, if an image has been rejected, please do not keep bombarding us with the same images until we post them (as a few have done so). Our decisions are final, but as mentioned above, we are happy to explain our motives.

So that about wraps things up for now. Thank you for choosing *holga; we hope you have a comfortable stay.

Don't think; shoot!
*holga admins.

Hello everyone!

First off, a big hearty welcome to every one who has joined since the last journal entry. It's great to see so many enthusiastic shooters out there utilising holga's as their weapon of choice.

A great deal of time has passed since the last journal entry into the plastic pantheon that we have here. Apologies for this, but there are good reasons, the principle amongst them being life away from here.

The admins. are a busy bunch and whilst we try to balance the managing of this club with real world activities, the latter can draw our attention away, which I'm sure (and would hope) is quite understandable.

So this brings us neatly to one of the main topics of this journal entry; we're looking for another admin. to join our team.

None of the current admins. are leaving, but we feel that having another member on-board will help to spread the workload a little more evenly, whilst also bringing fresh enthusiasm to the group. Admin. duties generally include the submission of pictures to the gallery; journal entries; adding new members and dealing with any queries that are sent to us, amongst one or two other things.

So, we're basically looking for someone with the aforementioned enthusiasm for the plastic fantastic, as well as a person who feels that they will be able to dedicate some of their time every week to the running of the club.

If you're interested, please send a note to us entitled 'ADMIN'. Applications will be open for 2 weeks commencing today. Once this window has closed, the current admins. will decide amongst ourselves as to who we think should join our team. Once elected and noted of their entry into the ranks, we'll announce the new member in a journal feature, with a short interview and feature of some of their holga work.

On another note, *Valimar would like to invite you to view a small reel of holga work that he has put together and placed on youtube. If you're interested in having a look, it can be found here: [link]

Indeed, if anyone other members dabble in multimedia work involving holga photos, drop us a note and we'll do our best to make sure it is exposed to the viewing public.

And last, but by no means least, we'd like to assure anyone who is waiting for the competition to surface that it should be up for air very soon. We're just trying to finalise prizes, but once they are sorted out, we shall draw back the blinds and unveil all.

Looking forward to seeing your future contributions and until next time, remember - don't think; shoot!

*holga admins.

Hello all,

We here at *holga hope that each of you is doing well, and that your holga's have been your constant companions during the summer so far.

We've had a lot of new members been signing up recently which is great news for the community, as we can help to expose the work of (perhaps) hitherto unknown deviants who are fighting the good lomographic fight. So, on behalf of all of all of the the admins. and the rest of the community, welcome to the fold; we're sure you'll enjoy your time with us.

Though we have continued to add members and to frequently submit to the gallery, the three of us admins. have had other things taking up a bit of our time recently. If anyone has been awaiting the oft' mentioned competition, we can assure you that once the time has become available, details and prizes shall be announced.

We had a suggestion made on our page by ~karmaprovesincere for an article about loading film, taking it out etc. As we've had a number of members sign up recently who are only just getting into the world of holga, we think this is a great idea, so look out for a guide very soon.

As has been mentioned in previous journals, if you've joined up, please try and make a mention of our club in your journal, or friends section; it helps raise our profile and spread the word about what we're doing here.

Take care for now.

*holga Admins.