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.  

When a young man was killed a few feet away from me

July 17th, 2017, I was walking to the grocery when I heard 3 shots in close proximity from where I was walking.  The Victim Terrell Smith (26) was shot 2-3 times fatally. At first, I thought It was an elderly man who fell but dived to avoid being shot by the bus stop. The Victim was shot by alleged suspect Chaz Reyes, who was reportedly a disabled young man who was robbed twice at gunpoint by the victim.  

At first, I thought it was still an active shooter situation, I saw Terell on the floor bleeding and losing consciousness, he did not speak. I asked him if he knew his shooter, he was struggling to talk,  a police car came right away and tended to him despite the few minutes that went by of the gunshots. Terrell died the next morning in the hospital. 

Shooting a future doctor



 When I was approached for the shoot regarding a client who wanted a photo for Med School applications, it was a hot summer week. Yuchen needed something to put in online applications that requested a photo. My idea was a minimalist shoot with a Canon Speedlite 580exII to the side and reflector at the bottom as fill, the sun was strong at 7:30pm but made a great rim light, giving my client a warm caring look, his smile came about from jokes from my assistant and model Annie who managed to make him laugh. A warm smile appeared as  he came down from his laughter. The fill and light fall off from his left side gave the brief and brilliant look of a photo that proper for representation with minimalist portrait look, great to get noticed and best for showing off his personality. I used a canon 5Dmark III with a 70-200mm canon 2.8 USM 2 telephoto lens for shallow depth of field and amazing bokeh.


                                               

                       

Yuchen DonYuchen D

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East Village photo Walkabout 8/7/2016


It's been awhile since I did any street photography due to lots of studio work. It was my birthday weekend and what a good time to celebrate my 40th birthday by enjoying the freedom as a street photographer.

Village 8/7/16

My DIY photography article about using the Light Blaster speedlite projector that was published 3 years ago.

http://www.diyphotography.net/how-i-got-my-art-biggest-wall-moma-ps1/ 

At the Mermaid Parade 2012

A photoshoot with actor Taimak Guarriello

Taimak and I first met in Club Limelight in 1996, eleven years after the of release of The Last Dragon, Meeting him first impression was that he was a down to earth person and didn't ride his ego from The Last Dragon. Years later he would frequently visit my job at Unique Copy Center at the East Village, making copies of Iron on transfers for his Fitness venture Taimak Fitness. Now it has been 20 years and threw a mutual friend became really close.

 Like me we have been born in the Year of The Dragon, and we started talking about how 2 dragons would collaborate in film and photography. My idea was to do a photo-shoot and interview that would cover the mystery that surrounded him after the success of The Last Dragon. Taimak has done everything from modeling, choreographing a Madonna video, teaching  Director guy Ritchie Jujitsu, and even Robert Deniros son.

Saturdays photo-shoot with Rose

NYC protest January 29th

I just wandered in the latest Occupy Wall Street protest that was northbound on 22nd street and ended at Tompkins Square park. The protest at first seemed organized, later turned into aimless wandering around the lower east side.  Some protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct, nobody was hurt, surprisingly N.Y.P.D didn't break any heads.

I used a Canon 7D with a pentax m42 105mm 2.8 lens