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I just recently moved from my apartment of 3 years in the little neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland. I didn't move far (just out to what would be considered the suburbs I guess) but as a collector of cameras, antiques and everything vintage... you could say I had a lot of things to move. It took all of 3-4 days to break-down, clean, move, clean, set-up and finish the process. Luckily, since I'm moving in with Tiffany, she was so kind as to help me get everything moved and by mid-Monday we had everything pretty much done.
Now, you might be thinking, "Well thats a cute story, but, what's it have to do with your photoblog?" Well, last night was something like my night of decompression. A chance to reset myself. So, I set out and drove around with my Crown Graphic looking for some things to take photos of, eventually ending up at Mahall's 20 Lanes bowling alley. I've taken some photos inside of this alley before, but never of the sign that I've drove by so many times before.
This particular image is one of my favorites from the night and was taken with Fuji's FP-100C45 using a front rise and tilt and approximately a 3 second exposure. I've only shot with this camera at night before using Fuji's FP-3000B45, but, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the 100C45 could handle the long exposures just as well. I think the color and range of the film worked out pretty well for this image, but, I will say that thus far I'm not a huge fan of the bokeh on this lens when it comes to dealing with brighter lights in long exposures. I guess until I purchase another lens for this camera though, I'm out of luck on that one.
I didn't take many more shots last night, but, I did end up reloading my Polaroid back with a new pack of the 3000B45 and look forward to heading out soon to shoot some more night time images.
There's not a lot to say about this photo - it was taken with my Crown Graphic 4x5 using Fuji's FP100C45. I took this a few weeks back while driving through town. This is a sign I've always thought about shooting and since I had my camera with me I decided to stop. This one is alright, but, after taking it I realized the photo in my head was in black and white and was taken at night. I might have to go back sometime soon and reshoot this.
While visiting NYC last week we ended up staying outside of Manhattan in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. It was a nice little area and we were right off of Fifth avenue, which, if you've ever been to the area, is where all of the restaurants, bars and shops are located. From what I understand, Park Slope is considered one of Brooklyn's up and coming neighborhoods - considering everything available in the area and it's convenient location to Manhattan I can see why.
The hotel we stayed at (Hotel Le Bleu) was a decent little boutique hotel that was situated right next to a Taxi depot. It was interesting returning to the area each afternoon as all of the drivers were coming in off their shifts. The cars were all piled up in the lot and the drivers were all congregating around talking about what I can only imagine to be the most entertaining stories from their recent fares.
The photo above was taken during a slower time of the day - shot with an SX70 Sonar using the Impossible Project's limited edition PX70 NIGO film. If you are not familiar, each frame in the pack happens to be a different color (It just so happens that this frame happens to be black which isn't that unfamiliar on this blog) but brighter colors are coming. The film itself is wonderful and of all the color films from Impossible that I've been shooting lately the PX70 has been some of the easiest to get good results from.
Another part of Brooklyn that I really enjoyed was the area around Brooklyn Bridge Park. We ended up stopping there on a whim on the way back from Manhattan. It had been raining all morning and we were dying to take some photos. As luck would have it, the rain ended and we were able to shoot around the park for a good hour or so.
While I did mostly shoot with my Yashica D in this area I do have a couple instant photos to share. Also shot with the Impossible Project PX70 NIGO, the above photos is of Jane's Carousel in the park. This Carousel is actually quite historic - it was built in 1922 by the Philadelphia Toboggan company and has since been purchased, restored and relocated to Brooklyn Bridge Park where it remains inside of a giant glass enclosure so it can be enjoyed by the public year round. Unfortunately, I was there on a Tuesday, which is the one day a week the Carousel is closed... so I shot this through the glass. If you look closely, you can actually see the Brooklyn Bridge itself in the reflection on the top right.
And, finally, to wrap up this longer than usual post - Since I don't have any actual instant photos of the Brooklyn Bridge I thought I would post the instant photo that I do have, which is of the other bridge you can view from the park - The Manhattan Bridge. As you can see this was shot with NIGO as well, and, the frame is a much more colorful result than the two photos posted above.
Hopefully in the near future I'll have some of my other film developed from this and other areas around town to share here on the blog, so, keep an eye out.
Early last week I spent a couple days in the NYC and Brooklyn areas in order to go to a few meetings about a big event that I can't yet tell you about. As soon as I can I will, but, in the meantime, I'll just start sharing some of the photos that I took while I was out of town.
Today's three photos all come from one of my favorite places to visit - Coney Island. I'm not quite sure what it is about this place that I love so much, but I find it endlessly fascinating. I like to think there used to be places like this all over the US and this is just one of the few remnants of that time - It's the kind of Americana that I love. I do know that part of the intrigue of this place is based around the fact that my all-time favorite movie (Requiem for a Dream) took place and was heavily filmed in the Coney Island and Brighton Beach areas.
There's really something wonderful about walking around a place that is so iconic, and, there's really no better example of how iconic it really is than the Cyclone. Now a nationally registered historic site the Cyclone is a wooden roller coaster that was built in 1927 and is still operational today. Originally part of Astroland, which closed in 2008 and was replaced in 2010 by Luna Park, the Cyclone is now owned entirely by the Parks Department and will remain operational independently thanks to it's status as a NYC landmark.
Another Coney Island landmark of the 1920's that is still operational today is the Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel appears to be part of Luna Park, but, is actually Part of Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement park... it all gets quite confusing when you look into it...
These three photos were all taken with a Polaroid 250 using some expired Polaroid Polacolor type 108 that I've been hanging onto for a special occasion. I wasn't able to shoot an entire pack (time was limited and walking around with wet photos is a bit difficult) but I do think that this film is well suited for the location. I would love to go back to this area again sometime and take a few days just to shoot.
Until then though... I'll be posting some more photos from this area and Manhattan as I get the time and as I get some film developed. Stay tuned.
Today I have a quick post from a very quick shoot that I did this past weekend. I worked with a newer model in a few different spots around Cleveland, and, had the chance to grab these two shots in the process with my Crown Graphic and some Fuji FP-100C45. These were actually taken just off the side of the road in a mostly industrial area of Cleveland - the grass just happens to be overgrown and not yet taken care of as it's still early spring. This Fuji peel-a-part film grows on me a bit more each time I shoot with it.
I've been shooting a little more often lately as the weather is getting nicer and I am heading out to different locations all the time for some work projects. Both of these image were shot using some old generation PX680 from the Impossible Project in an SX70 sonar with an ND pack filter. The top image, probably overly familiar at this point, is one of my favorite locations to shoot over at Edgewater beach. And the lower image, which didn't quite turn out how I expected, is from the studio. This old gen PX680 has continued to impress me - the colors really are kind of dreamy and fluid... perfect for these types of images.
As any frequent visitor to this little photo blog knows... I kind of have a little crush on the Impossible Project and all of the films they have released over the past couple of years. I have made my best effort to get a hold of and try each different version of their film to test and eventually post about here on my blog. To the best of my knowledge, I'm pretty close to having shot almost every film they have released... though I know there are a few I've probably missed. Now, for the most part, I have had positive experiences with each film despite the little problems here or there. This new Impossible Project PX600 COOL film though, well... it has me wanting to gush in a whole new way.
Yesterday, after finishing up a few older packs of film that I've been storing in my fridge, I finally loaded up the one pack of this film that I have. I took two images while out shooting some video content on location and instantly saw the potential of this film and how beautiful it could be, but, I wasn't truly sold on the extent of how great this film really is until I brought it back into the studio to shoot some controlled setups - Those two images are what I'm posting here today. Each was shot using controlled natural light with an SX70 Sonar, an ND pack filter, using a tripod with the lighten/darken wheel one notch to dark.
As you can see, this film is crisp and has a beautiful dynamic range. So far I've seen very few flaws of any kind in this film or it's development. Everything seems to consistently come out evenly developed without any patches, snakeskin, funky highlights or dark bars running through the image. Really, I've been a fan of TIP's black and white films from the beginning and the PX100 has recently been one of my favorites, but, this new PX600 Cool may just be the best film the Impossible Project has put out to date. This is the kind of stuff that makes me happy to be a part of shooting, testing and experiencing the growth of this company in real time and I can't wait to see how far they can push it in the future.
I've recently been testing a black Polaroid SX70 Model 3 that I picked up a couple months back as a project camera. I planned for this to be my second re-skinning project, but, I wanted to run a pack of film through it first to be sure that everything was functioning properly. Since I was completely unsure of how this camera would function (and because it's been sitting in my fridge a while) I decided to use a pack of old Impossible Project PX100 Orange Flash.
Originally when I got this film it was pretty much like shooting today's PX100, except a bit more contrasty and with orange tones to it instead of black and white. Now, after a long while in the fridge, this film has become very, very contrasty - In most photos, there are almost no mid-tones to be had. On the bright side, I was still able to squeeze a few decent shots out, and, more importantly, I happily discovered that this camera functions just fine.
Keep an eye out for the future re-skin of this camera... but in the meantime, here are some of the other Orange Flash photo successes.
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