A naked woman and truck burning on the same block at 39th ave and 11street Long island City Queens. The crazy shit I see as a Photographer.

Photographing Martin Scorsese

 

I remember meeting Martin Scorsese after he introduced a film to the Italian Department at Hunter College, we spoke about Cinematographer Freddie Francis and his work as a director, and Kinji Fukkasaku, really good vibes I got from him, Martin recommended me some great films, and signed my DVD copy of Taxi Driver shook my hand and wished me luck as a filmmaker/Photographer, great guy.

This was shot with a Pentax K-1000 and Ilford 400 film 

Sunset at Long Island City, Polaroid SX70 photo

 

#polaroidsx-70

I am a sucker for a good sunset, I saw this out my window, my window faces sunset. So I got the SX-70 sonar with UV filter strip on the 600 cartridges and and took it, I made sure the exposure dial was next to the end which is black all the way. Scanned on an Epson v500. 

Sunset taken with a Polaroid SX-70 at 44th DR and 21street

 I was coming to my studio after a 3 hour photo stroll, when I stopped at Dunkin Doughnuts to get a hot Latte, and a Boston Cream doughnut. While drinking I saw the sun go down and disappear at the ever expanding NYC skyline. However the hues of blue and pink were  still there in the sky, I quickly took my SX-70 and leaned up against a car, with no tripod I managed to shoot this photo, however I did have a half grad nd filter on my 3d printed filter adapter, and I stood still, locked in my elbows and took and a shot, 4 seconds later the picture came out. When I got to my studio it was still developing and after 15 minutes I got this beautiful picture. 

I scanned it with an Epson Perfection v500 I bought for 36 bucks on Mercari as a high res TIFF and Jpeg.

Using a Brother Scan and Cut to make cheap mats for Polaroid photos

 I bought a Brother Scan and Cut SD 125 months ago to cut vinyl and make stickers. It has served me well in the 6 months of using it. One day I was looking for pre-matted 8x10 mats for Polaroid photos, and could not find them. I saw online that Professional service charges a lot of money to have them done. So I came up with the idea using the Brother software that came with the cutter to make a perfect Polaroid square using 60-pound cardstock. You have to max out the settings and slow the cutter down, and possibly recut 3 times which takes less than 20 seconds, the results are impressive. I used photo corners to bring them together and pre-adhesive tape to make a mat hinge, it's not beveled but does its job looking better. just mounting it on a white background, almost gives a semi-drop box look to it.

Shooting Polaroids again!

After a call from my dad, A cache of my polaroids from my SX70, Spectra, and Onestep were found in an air-tight plastic box. Over 2000 polaroids were taken from the time of 1988-2004. I will showcase some with the story behind each picture. Hopefully someone is reading this blog.
 

Two years ago a dispute between two young men resulted in a shooting at 34-55 12th street Long Island City Queens. I took a picture of the aftermath of the bullet shattered plexiglass window during the sundown. Fortunately no fatalities, or injured.