Becky Ramotowski Bio

Becky is the founder of World Toy Camera Day. She has been a photo enthusiast since the age of six when she was given her first camera, an Imperial Mark XII, to take on a road trip across the southwestern USA and up the west coast to Seattle. Her “official” interest in toy cameras came in 2002 after seeing quirky photos made with Holgas and Dianas at a photo lab in Texas where she bought her first Holga.

“The very first photo I made with my Holga was one I really liked of a statue of “Nike of Samothrace” in a run-down park in San Antonio, Texas. It was the flawed statue and the run-down park full of weeds and abandonment that lured me in and set the hook for using toy cameras. The photo was vignetted and not quite perfectly focused that just felt at home. Toy cameras communicate a freer sense of photography that feels natural and relaxed at relaying an idea. Toy cameras are humbling when they fail or the back pops off and you have to scramble to repair and recompose. They aren’t perfect but are addictive and amazing in what they can do in creative hands.”

Becky has been in shows around the globe, been published in magazines and newspapers here and abroad, won numerous awards including Best of Show at Rayko, first place at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge Crane Festival, and has had several solo shows. She’s been featured in the New York Times, NOAA, Spaceweather, Nightsky, Star Date, Kamera and Build, Black and White and The Discovery Channel. She’s done workshops for pinhole and toy camera photography and for using homemade developers such as caffenol at The Parachute Factory in Las Vegas, NM and at colleges in Colorado and Texas.

Becky lives in Tijeras, New Mexico with over twenty toy cameras and her husband Shane.