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/