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

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.

Pekky Savan "Dear Lorin" // 16mm

It’s here! My first 16mm music video. And it’s for the rad, Pekky Savan, who I’ve worked with before on a Super 8 music video shot on Coney Island last year. This new video is for her newly released single “Dear Lorin”.

Cinematographer: Nick Collingwood

Director: Stephanie Haller

Art Direction: Halla Creative

PA: Tyler MacDonald

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My wife, directed the video and her brand, Halla Creative did all of the art direction for the video including styling, drawing the awesome overhead projection and all the other little touches that make the look complete. The film was shot using an old hand-crank, Russian Krasnogorsk-3 (K-3 for short) 16mm camera and expired Kodak Vision3 500T film both supplied to me via Mono No Aware.

Crown Graphic 4x5 | Kodak Tri-X 320 film (expired)

We also ended up shooting a few Instax shots with my Lomo Instant Square during the shoot and I just so happened to be borrowing a friends Crown Graphic 4x5 camera and some expired black and white film so I snapped a quick portrait of Pekky on set. So enjoy the video. Enjoy the instant shots. And I’ll toss in a few production stills and 16mm scans.

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

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.

Jessica & Jeremy Wedding // Super 8 + Polaroids

Jessica and Jeremy are a special one for me... mainly because they are related to me! Jessica is my sister-in-law and now Jeremy will be my brother-in-law. I was a guest at this wedding but as any photographer knows, it's hard to resist taking some photos and Jessica had actually reached out beforehand asking if I didn't mind taking a few. Uh... Yes!

This was a bit of a trip for me since this is only the second time I've ever been to the west coast! Last time I was out there was when I got engaged!

But anyways! The wedding took place in Camarillo about an hour north of LA, where they have been living, on a beautiful avocado/blueberry farm called Gerry Ranch. I must say farm weddings on the west coast are just about everything a film photographer could ask for. Great light. Great landscape. Obviously fantastic weather! I'm in.

Even so, I tried to not be that obnoxious guest with the big camera poking my way into the shots and had a great time shooting alongside Brittany of BKM Photography. She quickly fell in love with the Polaroids and Super 8 and was even shooting a bit of film herself. I was going around with my lovely Polaroid 110B with Instax Wide and expired Polaroid 689 film, my Polaroid SLR680 with Polaroid Originals color film and then Super 8 on my small Nizo 156 Macro and some glorious Fuji Provia shipped from Japan by Retro8. I don't travel light when it comes to cameras...

This time it's a mini wedding film as I was a seated guest doing my best to behave. Also it's actually an excerpt out of the 2 rolls of Super 8 I shot during the road trip my wife and I did while in the LA area. One day I'll get that up on the blog! You can see Jess's mini film below!

Overall, a really fun wedding with family and I was more than thrilled to capture a few moments of it on film.

Aileen & Philip Wedding // Super 8 + Polaroids

This is a wedding I had long been looking forward to shooting, Aileen and Philip! Aileen had contacted me over a year before her wedding raving about instant film and loving the Super 8 look for weddings so it was easy to be excited to shoot a wedding when the bride is so excited as well. You can watch their Super 8 wedding film below.

This wedding was a bit unique as well in that there were actually to be two weddings: a smaller family and bridal party wedding on Saturday (which is what I shot) and then a larger more traditional wedding on Sunday (shot by a friend and awesome photographer, Sophie Kwalek and featured on Style Me Pretty. Sophie and I both worked together on Patrick and Rachel's gorgeous Prospect Park Boathouse wedding). This was also unique in that I'd be the only photographer or cinematographer for the day, shooting everything on Instax and Super 8 film.

So we started the day at a beautiful cathedral in New Brunswick where the ceremony was held. A few guests and the families were the attendees for this more intimate ceremony. Aileen was wearing a stunning, fitted white dress and Philip was in a fantastic blue suit with red velvet accents. Very stylin’.

After the ceremony we strolled around the Rutgers campus where the couple met to take a few photos before headed over to the lunch held at one of their parent’s homes. There, they changed into outfits for a traditional tea ceremony held after weddings with close family. Then another quick outfit change into more comfy clothes for a veritable feast that awaited everyone in the backyard, cooked by the parents and included endless lobster, corn, meats, and veggies. 

A really lovely and laid back wedding day for two really great people. I had a lot of fun shooting with them and really love how their wedding film came out.