Jazz Age Lawn Party - West Side Story - Instax

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.

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.

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2017 // Super 8 + Polaroids

August 27, 2017

Definitely one of the most fun events to shoot on anything analog is the amazing Jazz Age Lawn Party every summer on Governor's Island in NYC. Once again, I was helping out the amazing crew at the Penumbra Tintype Studio by documenting on Super 8 their hard work shooting tintypes of guests and shooting Polaroids of the VIP guests.

Although as some people may point out, Super 8 didn't really surface until many decades after the 20's, it's still a very fitting format to shoot and especially seeing the final result projected is something special. So I shot using my favorite camera, the Nizo 801 Macro and I also opted to shoot some Impossible Project film and some Instax Wide in my custom Polaroid 110B from the 1950s.

With the instant film I opted for just portraits as for this event, the costumes and outfits are second to none! Some people are wearing genuine 1920s outfits they've scoured the planet for so they are quite a treat to shoot. And these days, Impossible Project's black & white film is really lovely. Sadly can't be shooting peelapart Fujifilm FP-3000B like I used to with it being $60/pack now!

Nonetheless, I shot a bit of the Penumbra crew in action shooting 4x5 and 5x7 tintypes and even managed to get one of myself at the end of the weekend. I'm not the most photogenic person, often being told I have a sad face... BUT the tintype master, Jolene, managed to get a solid portrait of me. It's really stunning. I returned the favor by shooting portraits of some of the Penumbra crew.

In the back of the event in the VIP section was analog guru Geoffrey Berliner with Curtis Wilcocks shooting peelapart Polaroids with Fujifilm FP-100C and his incredible Graflex Super D. He may correct me on that... The portraits have a wildly shallow depth of field and ultimately have a dream-like quality to them. In the main area was everything from vintage clothing shops, dancing, live jazz bands and even a mobile barbershop doing hot shaves! Michael Arenella is always at the front, directing the band and singing along with some special guests and the Dreamland Follies always have a few choreographed dances throughout the day in some marvelous vintage-styled outfits.

With a quick break to grab some food and drinks with my wife and a few friends who stopped by the event, it was quite the weekend. Not as hot as last August so that was a welcome reprieve. Perhaps one day I'll be behind the large format camera making tintypes... just have to learn how to first!

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2016 // Super 8 + 8mm + Polaroids

June 10, 2017

Michael Arenella's Jazz Age Lawn Party is truly one of the most fun events around to shoot. The costumes are brilliant, the dancers are bunch of fun, and capturing it all on vintage cameras couldn't be a more perfect match.

Last year I had the pleasure of shooting for the Penumbra Foundation and the Penumbra Tintype Studio which had a booth at the event, shooting portraits on bona fide tintypes. I was brought on to both document their process as well as the event overall, using black and white Super 8 film (Tri-X for those who care). Aside from bringing a Super 8 camera, my trusty Nizo 801 Macro, I also brought along my Polaroid SLR680 and my Polaroid Land Camera 250 to try and capture the weekend in many different ways. A special appearance was my newly acquired Keystone 8mm camera, courtesy of my now-wife's grandfather. I'm sure it hasn't had a roll of film run through it in 40 years so that was pretty exciting to test out. A myriad of cameras all together. The film below is a mixture of the Super 8 as well as the Regular 8mm. I'm sure you'll be able to tell the difference with the Super 8 being much sharper although I think that's also due to Fomapan being a rather muddy film for 8mm.

Nizo 801M & Keystone K35 8mm | Kodak Tri-X & Fomapan R100

It was quite a weekend. Possibly one of the hottest of the summer and spending it outside all day was a doozy. With that said, I still had a lot of fun grinning and bearing it with the Penumbra crew and was utterly fascinated by their amazing tintypes being created in mere minutes; the "original Polaroid" as they called it. Other than observing the tintypes shot by Jolene and Olivia and the Fujiroids being shot on a Graflex Super D by Geoffrey Berliner of the Penumbra Foundation, I strolled around and took footage of different guests, the performers on stage, as well as the amazing choreographed dances by Gregory Moore & The Dreamland Follies.

I also managed to get a nice headshot from Geoffrey which is probably one of the few times I'll ever look nice in a photo. I also took the negative and salvaged it and scanned it on my own and it really is a beautiful negative. Love doing that. Also Dean Chooch Landry was shooting some 4x5s for Penumbra on his own century old Graflex Super and snagged a couple of portraits of me. Pretty fantastic stuff!

Last year when I went, it was just for fun and I casually shot some Super 8 and some black and white Fujifilm FP-3000B on my Land Camera which is an incredibly rare film now due to being discontinued. This year since I was shooting mainly the Penumbra crew on Super 8, I decided to make an effort to take more portraits when shooting my Polaroids. I'm glad that I did because it was fun chatting with the different dolled-up guests and ultimately it landed me a spot in a group show featuring film photography and motion picture film from the Jazz Age Lawn Party at the Gowanus Darkroom, "Portraits from the New Jazz Age" . The show itself was really cool and it was great getting to see other film photographer's work displayed let alone, show some of my own work. Looking forward to the next Jazz Age Lawn Party!

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2015 // Super 8 + Polaroids

June 20, 2016

Having been to Michael Arenella's Jazz Age Lawn Party hosted by his Dreamland orchestra again this year, I figured I'd write a little bit about my time there last year. It truly is a fun day full of fantastic music, great dancing, good food and the best of all, amazing outfits!

Given the time period in which this festival reflects, I figured it would be appropriate to shoot some film while I was there (although the two cameras I used were from the 60s/70s to tell the truth). I shot some black and white Polaroids using my Polaroid Land 250 camera and Fujifilm FP-3000b pack film. The contrast and definition of that film is truly breathtaking, especially given that you can see the developed, instant shot in a mere 15-30 seconds after you yank it out. That's about the fastest developing film ever.

A few funny stories about using that camera, not only did I run into a few other people shooting with the same or similar camera, but there was a man there, whom I now know the name of, Geoffrey Berliner, who works with the Penumbra Foundation in NYC, who was also shooting with the same peel-apart type film but the color type (FP-100C). The fascinating part was he was using a camera truly out of that era, a very old Graflex camera that he adapted to use pack film. Those results were absolutely breathtaking. That film combined with a giant lens produced results like no other. I also stumbled upon a few other people with Polaroid Land cameras which was a treat having other instant enthusiasts around. Of course there were more than a few TLRs or film SLRs but Polaroids are harder to come by.

The last odd story is about a photo I no longer have. Meandering the party near the end of the day, wondering what to do with my final shot, thinking I may use it for a skyline shot aboard the ferry back to Manhattan, a man stopped me and began to eagerly ask questions about the camera. He finally asked if I minded if I took a shot of him and his friends and then offered me $20, which I happily obliged at that point. Ha. At the time, that was about the cost of an entire pack of that film whereas now with it being discontinued, it's about half the cost! Anyways, so I shot a group shot of him and all of his friends in their finest garbs, the photo came out beautifully, and they set off gleefully with their new print. That to me is the magic of Polaroids. Near instant results.

Aside from all of the fun with the Polaroid camera, I also shot a roll of Tri-X Reversal Super 8 film in my Nizo S56 camera. I shot different snippets of the event from the amazing dancing, choreographed performances, the band, the people, and managed to end it all on a fading skyline. Busting that camera out also managed to get some looks and even caused an NYU film professor to stop me and chat about the format and how he wished he brought his. Vintage cameras are always a great talking point and I love when people stop me and want to chat about them.

Jazz Age Lawn Party 2016 - Polaroid Spectra (IP 600 Color Gen2)

This final shot is actually from this year's Jazz Age. Only had one shot left in my Polaroid Spectra camera so saving it for a big group shot seemed like the best use! Such a swell day! Hope to be shooting more film there in the future.

Super 8mm and Polaroid work featured on

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