Art attack: Arlene Bogna's ‘Safari Americana’

"Honey," 36-by-36-inch print (Credit: Arlene Bogna)

Ask anyone with a gaffer's-tape-covered Holga, and they’ll tell you that plastic toy cameras are a bitch to operate. The cheap, medium-format beasts were never meant for high art, but their erratic light leaks create eerily beautiful vignetting, and their low-end lenses blur objects into an otherwordly haze. Mastery of this medium elevates you to god status in cult-photography rings.

L.A. photographer Arlene Bogna has spent years taming the Holga’s idiosyncrasies and even dared to go further, tempting fate with challenges like expired film and super-saturated cross-processing. Her bravery in the face of really expensive film lab fees has not gone unappreciated. Photos from her new series, “Safari Americana: Scenes of Delight” pop off the paper with rich pigments and a gorgeous stillness. Exploring the very specific and bizarre theme of roadside animal effigies (fiberglass cows, anyone?), Bogna presents a show that’s hauntingly vintage in aesthetic but also an homage to modern, plasticine life. Great, now we want a road trip.