Super 8 + Polaroids

April 21, 2023

With a little bit of a wedding backlog, this one is from before the world went crazy. It’s Tori and Eric’s Hudson Valley wedding on Super 8 and Polaroids! They had a lovely little ceremony upstate in the Hudson Valley literally overlooking the Hudson River. It was stunning! Take a look below!

I also was shooting a bit of instant film that day and got some truly wonderful moments on the custom Instax camera I was using. The black and white instant film really just fits so well with weddings. So classic and chic!

I’ve got a bunch of weddings to post and really want the world to see them so promise to start posting in the blog more often!

Congrats to Tori and Eric and hope they’re doing well!

Jazz Age Lawn Party - West Side Story - Instax

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2019 // Super 8 + 16mm + Polaroids

September 3, 2019

Back at it again with this year’s trip to the marvelous Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor’s Island in New York City. For those unaware, the Jazz Age Lawn Party is a yearly event taking place on a weekend in both in June and August where you travel out to the really beautiful island off the southern tip of Manhattan and have a day filled with jazz, champagne and dancing. Everyone dresses up in their finest 1920’s threads (some of it is genuine vintage clothing from the time period!) and enjoy a day relaxing.

I always go with the amazing Penumbra Foundation’s tintype booth they run every year. They shoot actual tintypes on large format 4x5 and 5x7 cameras. I document their booth as well as the event on Super 8 and this year I added some 16mm into the mix as well. The Super 8 was B&W Tri-X self-processed at MONO NO AWARE, a cinema arts non-profit I work with in Brooklyn, and the 16mm was color negative shot on a Bolex H16 and processed/scanned at the new Kodak NYC lab! You can see some of the footage from the day below!

A fun little snippet in there is when part of the cast of the upcoming Broadway show and Steven Spielberg directed film adaptation of West Side Story. Probably around 8 of the cast members were at the event just enjoying the day and couldn’t help but get a tintype of the crew to immortalize the day. They were a lot of fun and really loved their tintype. I later caught a portrait of two of them on some instant film which is featured at the top of this post.

Aside from documenting on motion film, I always can’t resist bringing a few still cameras to take some portraits because the outfits are always incredible. I brought along a Polaroid 110B with some Instax Wide film as well as a modified Instax Wide 300. Bringing along cameras that were at least closer to the correct time period (albeit still from the 50s technically) is a treat because they always get a lot of looks and questions as I walk around with them.

Also, while helping out the Penumbra Foundation with their booth, the tintype studio manager, Jolene Lupo, and I devised a very McGyver’d way to shoot a “mug shot” type double exposure on a single plate. Took a lot of ingenuity and several extra hands but the results were exactly as we’d hope for! This is the flipped scan since with a tintype, everything comes out inverted.

In the end, it was a hot but fun weekend to test out lots of different cameras and chat with some really inspiring artists working on their craft. And be sure to check out the previous years I’ve gone: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.

Brittany & Alex - Wedding // Super 8 + Polaroids

February 12, 2019

A wedding on a lake house in Connecticut where the bride and groom are entering the cocktail hour on a motorboat? And I’m there to capture it all on Super 8? Count me in. Plus, Brittany and Alex were such a fun and chill couple and their family and friends were a blast. And to top it off, their photographer, Dan Crosley, would be photographing the whole thing on film as well. A 100% film wedding! So rad! Take a peek at their Super 8mm wedding film below as well as some of the instant photos I took.

As much as I love New York City, any New Yorker will admit to wanting to get out of the city for a break and soak in some nature. So getting to capture a wedding at a family lake house with the ceremony taking place right on the water was absolutely amazing. Right after their ceremony on the waterfront, the couple hopped on a bona fide yellow school bus and jetted over to the other side of the lake for some portraits.

This all leading up to some friends in a motorboat arriving to pick them up at sunset and shuttling them across the lake to the all of the wedding guests eagerly waiting for them to arrive. It was pretty fantastic. Then the fun just kept going with their dancing-filled reception and some hysterical toasts. What an evening and so happy for them as they start life together!

Vendors

Photography - Dan Crosley Photo

Flowers - Cheshire Nursery

Catering - Bourassa Catering

Dress - BHLDN Anthropologie Bridal Line

DJ - After Hours DJ

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2018 // Super 8 + Polaroids + 120

August 17, 2018

Michael Arenella's Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island in NYC every summer is such a fantastic time. People dressed to the nine's in 1920's outfits (some authentic!), great jazz, old cameras... it's a great combo. So getting to help out the Penumbra Foundation shoot tintypes at the event and capture it all on Super 8, Polaroids and 120 is a swell time for sure. Take a gander at the Super 8 I shot below!

This was the 4th year I've attended the event and the third time helping the Penumbra Foundation's Tintype Studio out at the event. (You can see my previous Super 8 and film photos for 2017, 2016 & 2015) Penumbra shoots actual tintypes on location at the event using 4x5 or 5x7 cameras and people can walk out of the event with a tintype in hand. People are always quite surprised that the format is still around similar to their reaction to me shooting Polaroids and Super 8. Some of the Penumbra crew like to call tintypes the 19th century "Polaroid" as it takes merely a few minutes for the finished photo to be seen.

The last few years, I've helped them out and documented both the event and their booth on Super 8 using a Nizo 801 Macro camera and some Kodak Tri-X film. Never one to travel light on cameras, I also like to bring along other cameras since portrait worthy people are plentiful so I brought my Polaroid 110B with my Instax Wide back and peelapart back with some expired Polaroid 664 film which had mixed results. Also brought my Polaroid 680SLR and then a Mamiya 7 I borrowed from a friend for the weekend to try out since I've never really shot 120 film. Needless to say from the results below but that camera is sharp! Combined with some expired Tri-X and some Fujifilm Pro 400H film in there, it really shined.

Jazz Age 120 portait - Mamiya 7 (Kodak Tri-X).jpg

This year I opted to process the Super 8 film I shot myself with some help from Steve Cossman of Mono No Aware (which is a great cinema arts non-profit based in NYC which teaches tons of workshops on filmmaking on actual film). I used an old Russian processing tank called a Lomo tank which is similar to Patterson tanks for still photography. I was nervous but the processing went great and you can see from the results above the Super 8 came out well. Eager to process more film now!

I'll be missing out on the festivities this weekend but I'm sure I'll be back in 2019! Many thanks to the Penumbra Foundation for the opportunity! And I'll leave you with a few shots of my Penumbra buds for the weekend.

MODE EN COULEUR - Fashion Show // Super 8 + Polaroids + 35mm

July 27, 2018

A few months ago I had the opportunity to help out with a local fashion incubator based out of the Brooklyn Library called BKLYN Fashion Academy. It's part of BKLYN Incubator which offers a ton of services for locals like podcasting, robotics, and photography. They had an upcoming fashion show for their program and wanted it captured in a unique way. Film and fashion are having a moment and I thought it would be a great fit.

The inspiration for the show was "the history and fashion of Les Sapeurs, a Congolese subculture dedicated to the cult of style and being walking works of art." Looking at images and stories of Les Sapeurs is truly some incredible stuff and stories of personal triumph over poverty.

I shot BTS backstage as the designers finalized their garments and shot some snippets of the models on the runway. I captured the night on a variety of formats including Super 8, instant film and 35mm. It was an extremely bright and fun show to shoot and backstage was madness as one expects with a fashion show.

But overall, the designers, models or organizers were fantastic and put on a brilliant show. Met some really great passionate people and that's always inspiring to be around.

Vendors

Super 8mm and Polaroid work featured on

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