Large Format + 35mm + Polaroids

October 20, 2023

I love shooting NYFW. It’s fun. It’s exhausting. The outfits are insane. You meet cool people. The energy is fantastic. So when my friend, Burke, asked me to shoot some BTS alongside him at the Inherent fashion show at NYFW back in February and said “bring whatever cameras you want”, I was in.

So with that much flexibility... I’ll share a bit about the cameras I ended up bringing for those interested…

I’m always up for a challenge, so I brought my Graflex Super D large format SLR camera with some BW film pushed to 1600 since I figured NYFW isn’t often captured on large format these days and now is the time to make it happen. Then I had my Canon AE-1P with the Lomography 85mm Petzval lens with CineStill 800T and as a silly last thing, I brought a Polaroid Passport 2-lens camera and some very expired Polaroid 669 peelapart film for some diptychs.

Unfortunately, I could only stay for the setup as I had plans that evening but it was great just capturing the models and the show BTS in those moments.

I posted most of on my instagram already but with NYFW having just happened again at the beginning of September, figured I’d get these up on the blog.

Paloma // Polaroids + Large Format + 35mm

December 29, 2021

I have kinda been failing at this blog for the last couple of years (wonder if there’s…. something happening in the world that’s stifling creativity lately? Hmm…) so I figured might as well sneak in one last post into 2021. A brief shoot with Paloma on everything from tiny 35mm up to 4x5 and a couple of my earliest 8x10 portraits.

Definitely one of my favorites was almost one of the first photos of the day. Trying to get into the flow and just being goofy with posing hands and we landed on this funky pretzel arm pose and combined with the expired Polaroid 669 film, it really hits hard.

Then came the big boys. Recently borrowed a gorgeous 8x10 Chamonix large format camera from a friend and have been trying to put it to work while I have it. So a couple shots with Paloma seemed appropriate. Once I landed on a pose with 35mm, I grabbed the 8x10 and pulled off the shot below. Nothing like seeing a sheet of film bigger than your face in the darkroom.

And popped of another Polaroid of the red dress with some very bizarre Polaroid Type 79 film that came out beautifully. The colors do not disappoint. Experimented with the generally unusable negative as well. Had to cover myself with a BW shot which is at the top of the post which I really love as well.

Grabbed one last shot in the red dress with my new Lomography LomoGraflok back for large format cameras. Nice to shoot a cheaper instant film like Instax in a good camera.

Then switched up the outfit a bit and added some lace to the mix.

And again, loving the back shot, played with a variation of that for the second 8x10 shot and after messing around with the hair and buttons a bit, landed on something I loved.

Figured we could move from the studio setup and shoot around my living room with my 1940s large format camera and more Polaroids/35mm.

A few last Polaroids and look changes before the end of the shoot.

Yet one of my other favorites from the shoot was the last. A messy hair shot that came out like someone living in a foggy dream. One on expired Type 59 film (my favorite) and a test on the Lomo back.

A good shoot to cap off my 2021 year. Always shooting. Always improving. Always experimenting.

And shout out to Paloma of Crawford Models who killed it on this shoot and not only put up with the weird cameras but was itching to get her 35mm camera back in action in 2022.

Cameras used:

Chamonix 8x10 with 240mm f5.6 // Arista 400 BW 8x10 film

Speed Graphic with Zeiss Tessar 165mm f3.5 and Fujinon 210mm f5.6 // Arista 400 BW 4x5 film / LomoGraflok with Instax Wide / Expired Polaroid Type 59/79

Graflex Super D with Zeiss Tessar 150mm f3.5 // Arista 400 BW 4x5 film / Expired Polaroid 669

Polaroid 195 // Polaroid 669

Nikon S2 // Arista 400 BW 35mm film

**Rosario Dawson on expired Polaroid 669 film**

NYFW SS2022 on Large Format Film // 4x5 + Polaroid

September 28, 2021

Been a little while since I’ve written here but that definitely doesn’t mean I haven’t been shooting. I’ve been burning through film like mad! I just happened to get back a newly modified antique (or vintage should I say) large format camera the week of New York Fashion Week so figured it was a good opportunity to test it out!

A little more background on the camera (or skip this for the cool photos!)... it is a late 1940s Graflex Super D 3x4 large format SLR camera. Not your average SLR as it’s about 10x as big and with film to match and you look down to focus it. A great guy and amazing photographer, Jonathan Canlas, who runs The FIND Lab in Utah gave it to me when I briefly stopped by his studio space last fall on a roadtrip and chatted all things film. He said it was just collecting dust on his shelf and he felt like I’d put it to good use and I’d wager he was right! Unfortunately, it uses a rare film size and is hard to find, so I sent it to Graham at Graflex Parts who specializes in repairing these in order to use more readily available 4x5 film and allows me to shoot my favorite Polaroid peel-apart film! Anyways, onto the photos! Be sure to click them for the full screen viewing!

So met up with my guy, Naeem, who is a fellow film shooter and hit Spring Studios in SoHo which generally serves as the hub for New York Fashion Week and is always a good spot for street style photos as people come and go to the runway shows. The large format camera definitely attracted quite a lot of looks from the people attending the shows as well as the other photographers shooting. If you’re curious to see some of the BTS of me shooting, there’s a story highlight on my instagram of NYFW that shows me using it, peeling some Polaroids and developing the negatives in my “darkroom” aka bathroom. Jostling for people’s attention and to tell them this would take a minute wasn’t always easy but the results speak for themselves. I only took one shot of each person so had to make it count! No digital burst mode on this thing. The shots above are a few of my favorite portraits.

But as far as outfits go… lots of patterns throughout the weekend which personally I’m a huge fan of.

And the guys were bringing the vibes as well.

Definitely a highlight was unexpectedly seeing Rosario Dawson and getting a couple shots of her in a stunning, patterned dress from Studio 189 and shot my first Polaroid of NYFW with her. Luckily it came out fantastic!

Also spotted my friend and model, Sarah Jane Nader, and her sister, Brooks Nader, and snagged a couple portraits as they ran in and out of the building.

And of course, shot some Polaroids with the camera as well. All on expired Polaroid 669 film from around 2006. The peels always get crazy reactions which are hilarious but I love hearing the reactions each time. Rosario actually thanked the “Graflex” in her video.

Here’s a few other random shots from the weekend of various people I managed to stop for a portrait.

Ending with a couple portraits of Naeem and my wife, Halla, who both were servin for the NYFW weekend! And a portrait Naeem took of me looking disheveled holding the camera and my FW fit on his medium format Yashica 124G TLR camera.

Matty Marz - "Nu Eyes" // 16mm + MiniDV + Polaroids + 35mm

May 30, 2021

A long overdue blog post! I recently released a new music video in collaboration with Halla Creative for the musician, Matty Marz! And in the midst of a pandemic no less.

I first met Matty when I shot some portraits for him last December, my first indoor shoot since the beginning of the pandemic but was totally worth it. My wife Halla (of Halla Creative) and I were masked up and ready to shoot when Matty came over and we just went off on that shoot. Matty told us he was planning a music video for his upcoming single “Nu Eyes” and wanted us on the project to shoot it on film! So check out the full video below for all the punk-pop vibes you’ve been needing in your life this year!

This video was directed by Matty and assistant directed by Halla Creative and was a wild one because not only was it still a pandemic, but it would be shot in an empty gymnasium out on Long Island on 3 different formats. 16mm film. MiniDV tape and a modern digital camera. So we were spanning nearly 70 years of cinema filmmaking. And to top it off, a few Polaroids, expired and new with some 35mm tossed in there. And brought on my buddy, Jason Bullok, as digital camera op to help make this video shine.

The song was about leaving childhood baggage and having a glow-up so we figured that some school portrait-type Polaroids were in order because why not! And also shot some other 35mm stills throughout the shoot on including a few on some particularly rad rainbow film from BKIFI.

That’s it!

Director: Matty Marz

Assistant Director: Stephanie Haller of Halla Creative

DP: Nick Collingwood

Camera Operator: Jason Bullok

PA: Kyle Foxworth

HMU: Veli

Shot on Kodak Vision3 500T 16mm film

Processing by Kodak NYC

Bolex rental and 16mm scans provided by Mono No Aware

MiniDV camera provided by my mom

Nikon FM2 with Vision3 500T from Mono No Aware and rainbow film by BKIFI Film

Leather Curtains & Trenchcoats with Caity & Rachel // Super 8 + Polaroids

September 19, 2020

Back in February juuuuust before the pandemic really locked down NYC, a few friends and I got together to hang out and shoot a bit. I was showing my buddy. Jordan, who shoots more Polaroids than even me, how to use a large format 4x5 camera with Polaroid film. Caity was a friend of his who modeled and was kind enough to hang out in front of the camera for some of the night.

I shot several Polaroids of Caity on my smaller Polaroid 110B camera as well as one on the large format camera with Supersense’s ONE INSTANT film (the orange one above), a reincarnation of a dead Polaroid film format. She was serving the retro looks in the trench coat with those glasses and the film just matched those vibes perfectly.

Also, as I do, I brought along a Super 8 camera with a bit of expired film in there to shoot. Near the end of the night as we were switching up outfits, she found a leather curtain of sorts and fashioned it into a makeshift outfit. Why not? And with that, I shot a bit of the Super 8 and threw together a quick edit with the footage for fun.

His friend, Rachel, was modeling that night as well and I got some pretty stellar shots of her on the various Polaroid cameras we had around to test.

Looking forward to being back in NYC and in the studio again soon! 2020 can’t stop me!

And for the film nerds reading… the specifics of the cameras used:

Large Format - Cambo 4x5 View Camera with Polaroid 405 back (Polaroid 669 expired ~01, Supersense ONE INSTANT film, Ilford FP4)
Super 8 - Canon 514XL (Kodak Vision2 500T expired - Dev/Scan by MetroPost)
Polaroid - Polaroid 110B modified (Polaroid 669 expired ~08)

Cameras used:

That’s it!

Super 8mm and Polaroid work featured on

Instagram