Four Corners Dark is produced by Nic Nichols, documentary photographer. This site is dedicated to bringing you the latest news, reviews and info in the Toy Cam World...
I have always had a love of Russian cameras, and with the opening of Four Corner Store, I have had the chance to track down some great exporters of obscure models. Over the next few posts, we’ll get to know some variants on the Smena, one of my favorite 35mm cameras. I first bought one to replace my broken Holga 35, but since have been on a quest to find and import as many different models as we can dig up. Our contact in Russia has sent a new shipment with a variety of models, but before we put them on sale, we’d like to look a little further into each one.
…Sorry for the lack of updates this week, we’ve been on a small Holiday to the Chesapeake Bay for some much needed rest and change of pace. I did, of course bring some cameras with me and there will be some images up soon. We just got a big shipment in from Russia with some Villia’s, Smena Symbols, Carbolites and more, so we’ll be sorting them out and getting you info this week. Until then, enjoy this little video from the amazing Digital Harinezumi, which I am very happy to say will be arriving at the store this week. Yes, that is me piloting a very large sailboat, and no, I have no idea what I am doing. But the Captain was busy giving a lecture on Oysters, and I guess I looked like I could steer? Needless to say we got a little off course.. which is just fine on Holiday.
Warren Harold, winner of our Ikimono giveaway has been having a great time creating images with the little wonder, and send us a few to share with our readers. He’s now passing the camera on to his Son, and we can’t wait to see what he comes up with!
$350. Let that sink in for a second. That’s what Lomo wants to charge you for a Lubitel 166. $350. Do you realize what else you could buy with that kind of money? I do. But I wanted a Lubitel anyway, because if you follow this blog you know there is one thing I love- Russian Cameras. So what is the solution?
Why am I shooting a Holga from my hip? And who’s idea was it to put a waist level finder and extra lens on this Holga to create what may just be the ugliest toy camera ever? Is it just a clever marketing ploy? Or has Holga finally produced a camera for Americans who are too lazy to just bend over? A combination of all of the above, the Holga TLR is truly an odd camera. But as it’s our job to test Toy Cameras, we couldn’t pass up this one, and had one shipped in from Hong Kong a few weeks back.
It was another incredibly hard job to judge all the entries in the Iconic Image contest, but we’ve come up with three. We’ll feature more throughout the next few months as well, but for now here are the three winners.
This week’s story comes from Peter Schafer, who has created some wonderful images with his Diana- which travels side by side with his Leica. He talks about the qualities of both and reasons that they share his camera bag…
Don’t forget to send in your entries in for the Iconic image contest, which will end tomorrow at Midnight Eastern Time. Details in the full post below, and winners will be announced on Monday. Good luck to all that have entered so far!
Goats from Nic Nichols on Vimeo. Still a work in progress, but I’ve been editing snippets of video from my travels last week.. here we have some Goats playing on their quite elaborate system of walkways.. more video and images from the Holga TLR tomorrow…
Its one of the strangest cameras to come out in a while, but here it is: the Holga TLR. Ours arrived last week from Holga Magic in Hong Kong, and the few rolls we’ve run thru it look pretty good. Currently available on eBay, they are running about $50.00 and come with the four-color flash. Full review later this week after we’ve had a chance to really take a close look.
Not since the arrival of the Blackbird, Fly has their been so much anticipation for the release of a Toy Camera. We receive emails daily asking about the Digital Harinezumi, and finally I can give you all of the details. But first, there is that question you all have been asking: Can you have a digital Toy Camera?
This week’s story comes from a familiar voice- Sean Stimac. You may remember him from his crazy pinhole DIY, but here he talks about selling his big film cams and DSLR’s and going back to basics. Also check out his site, linked at the end of the piece, The Photo PlayGround is developing very well.
One of the goals when we started the Four Corner Store was to donate a percentage of the profits to homeless animals. We share our home and studio with Harley, our rescued Dog, Gracie our rescued Cat and even Buck Nasty, a Turtle who we found the day after our wedding. Through the fantastic amount of sales over the first month, we were able to make our first trip to Faithful Friends, a no-kill shelter that I helped found in 2001. We donated a large dog kennel, dog beds, collars, leashes, nail clippers, and a big bag of toys and more. We also donated a few Shironeko Holga’s for them to auction off at their next event. What better prize to win then a camera designed to photograph cats! We brought one along as well as an LC-A to take a few shots and show you guys the animals that all of your patronage are helping to save. Enjoy the gallery, and we hope to make many more trips to the shelter with donations in the future.
Reinventing an existing product is difficult, but SuperHeadz has done it again. They reinvented the Twin Lens Reflex with the Blackbird Fly- and have now tasked their design team with a 35mm back for the Holga Camera. You expect nothing but the best quality and most innovative products from the team at PowerShovel, but this accessory exceeded even my hopes with what they could do for those who want to shoot 35mm film in a Holga camera.
