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!

50 Feet of Song - Kirby Brown // Super 8

March 13, 2017

I recently got the chance to collaborate with a brilliant Super 8 project called 50 Feet of Song, based in Portland, OR. To give you an idea of the concept, the website explains it best:

Inspired by the visionary field recordings of Alan Lomax and the direct cinema of the late '60s, we hit the road all over the Pacific Northwest recording artists at festivals, in hotel rooms, back alleys, and on front porches creating new field recordings in the folk tradition. 50 feet of Super 8 film measures out to about 3 minutes of record time. This 3 minutes also mirrors the standard length of a song, a convention left over from the physical limitations of 78rpm records. It's within these confines that we set out to record original sessions of the songs of our time. We also believe that behind every good song is an even better story. In addition to shooting sessions, we are deeply interested in the personal narrative that surrounds the craft and reveals to us the beating heart behind the song.

So once I found out about this project combining folk music and film, I knew I wanted to help out in some way and figured they could use some help covering the many musicians passing through New York City.

The first NYC session is a Nashville-based and former NYC dwelling musician, Kirby Brown singing "No One Ever Noticed". See the full session below and watch more at www.50feet.org.

Looking forward to filming more musicians for 50 Feet of Song in the future.

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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