Super 8 + Polaroids

April 21, 2023

With a little bit of a wedding backlog, this one is from before the world went crazy. It’s Tori and Eric’s Hudson Valley wedding on Super 8 and Polaroids! They had a lovely little ceremony upstate in the Hudson Valley literally overlooking the Hudson River. It was stunning! Take a look below!

I also was shooting a bit of instant film that day and got some truly wonderful moments on the custom Instax camera I was using. The black and white instant film really just fits so well with weddings. So classic and chic!

I’ve got a bunch of weddings to post and really want the world to see them so promise to start posting in the blog more often!

Congrats to Tori and Eric and hope they’re doing well!

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.

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

July 27, 2018

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.

Pekky Savan "Today" // Super 8 + Polaroids

May 18, 2018

My first full length music video is out today! Shot completely on Super 8 out on Coney Island, NY, this music video was for Pekky Savan, a singer songwriter from Brooklyn.

She is a long time friend of mine and wanted to collaborate with my wife/art director, Stephanie Haller, and I to create a music video for her single "Today" on her upcoming EP release.

Stephanie concepted the video and created a custom jacket for Pekky and I also shot some Polaroids throughout the process on my SLR 680 with some expired Impossible Project film. It was a great project to work on and I'm definitely looking forward to shooting more music videos on film.

Also figured I could add a few BTS shots from the shoot Stephanie took on my DSLR.

Super 8mm and Polaroid work featured on

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