One of my favourite souvenirs from my trip overseas is an Holga fish-eye lens. I bought it at an Urban Outfitters in Santa Barbara quite cheap (compared to what I would have paid for it in Australia at any rate). I was itching to use it so, as soon as I returned home, I whipped it out and shot a few holga shots. Here's the precious lens:
Obviously, close up shots would benefit more than any other to make use of the curved lens, but I'm keen to use it in other ways to see what might turn up. Here's one of the shots I took in my garden:
It's hard to see the focal point in this shot, I know, but I love the colours and the streaming sunlight. It was late afternoon and a beautiful day, so I feel it captured the atmosphere quite well.
The Holga has such a wide lens on it that I've always found it hard to avoid the subject of my photos looking small or lost. I don't take a lot of portraits, partly because I have few willing models and partly because I feel self-conscious (note: must get over this). I will try using the fish-eye lens for portraiture - the novelty of it might help the subject, as well as myself, to relax a bit. But in the meantime, I'm happy to experiment as usual with scenes of my surroundings.