Fall Birthday Getaway // Super 8 + Polaroids

For the past 3 years, my (now) fiancée and her longtime best friend/roommate have combined their fall birthdays into one great weekend getaway somewhere in the Northeast with some of our closest friends.

We usually find a house to rent out for the weekend and just enjoy fall activities like campfires, corn mazes, and just sitting around enjoying the cool fall air. What more could you ask for?

Last year I shot some pack film Polaroids along with a roll of Super 8 during the trip and figured this would be a lovely place and time to share them given that it's finally turning into fall again albeit it feels like we're skipping to winter! I shot the Polaroids with a Polaroid Land Camera 250 with Fujifilm FP-100C film and for the Super 8, I used my trusty and tiny Canon 514XL loaded with my favorite versatile stock, Kodak Vision3 200T. I also reclaimed the Polaroid negatives and some of them came out truly amazing!

As far as the trip itself, we rented a house in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and just did fun fall things. We hung out and cooked. We checked out a pumpkin patch and drank some hot cider. Petted some random farm animals. And... we went n a truly bizarre corn maze with lots of odd... dog creature things that were haunting it. They were truly some one of a kind creations and gave us a laugh.

Overall it was a wonderful time. Fall is a pretty great time of year to be hanging out and taking photos so I had to seize the moment. Looking forward to soaking up the nice fall weather. Enjoy the Super 8 film from that weekend below!

My Interview with the Phoblographer

I met the Phoblographer, otherwise known as Chris Gampat, at a recent pinhole photography event with Lomography NYC. He recently ran a contest on the subreddit r/Polaroid He moderates. My photo was the runner-up with the reclaimed Polaroid negative of the wedding flowers below. I was so happy to be able to speak with him about my business and love for photography for a feature on his blog.

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Runner-up in The Phoblographer's r/Polaroid Instant Film Contest

“People loved the nostalgic quality and texture that the instant film had plus the couples loved that it was a photo memento they could hold almost immediately.” says Photographer Nick Collingwood, who describes himself as a motion designer by day and film addict roughly 24/7. “…With the slower process for the Polaroids, it puts the importance on creating interesting situations to photograph on film vs capturing candid shots made easy with modern autofocus cameras.”

Based in Brooklyn, he has an affinity for Super 8 and Instant film. This love of the analogue world and culture was recently turned into a business of his: he second shoots as a wedding photographer and focuses on weddings.

Oh yeah, and he loves talking about gear.

You can check out the detailed interview (with more photos) about of my love of film in the full interview on The Phoblographer here.

Tara & Collin // Super 8 + Polaroids

Tara and Collin are fantastic! I met Tara 3 years ago via my best friend when she first moved to NYC. Soon after, Tara became not only my roommate but a partner in plenty of creative endeavors. Tara runs a photography and creative collective in Kansas City called Wild Creatives now that she has departed from NYC and is doing super cool things there. Collin, her husband, is a consultant and overall a great dude. It’s been over a year since she left NYC yet we’re still great friends which led to me filming her wedding on Super 8 and shooting some Polaroids.

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Collin and Tara’s wedding was destined to look like it was out of a magazine. Tara has been running an Etsy shop for years so she’s a pro crafter and has a killer sense of design. I was excited to capture all of the special details of their wedding in the unique and special way that only film can.

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These two have been dating since they met in college in Iowa and are both hilarious and super fun to be around. Their wedding was in Lake Doniphan, MO, just outside of Kansas City where they are both from. It was an obscenely beautiful day and both Tara and Collin looked amazing.

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I took some Polaroids during the wedding and with the amazing amount of sun that day, they came out beautifully. Tara and Collin also opted to have me reclaim the negatives which I’ll write about in another post but basically boils down to me bleaching the negatives of the Polaroid (Yes! Some Polaroids have negatives) and scanning that in. The results are incredible and speak for themselves.

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The above photo was selected as a runner-up in The Phoblographer's "Instant Film Contest"

Also, to top off the experience, I shot a couple of rolls of Super 8 for them. Having such non-traditional cinematography was definitely a talking point throughout the wedding for the guests and the film came out great. The grain and casualness of Super 8 really can be fun. Check out their final film below!