All my friends
Ok so some brief context before a whole lot of No Context Photos:
When I was starting to plan my little two month jaunt to NYC, I organised / commissioned a refurbished Polaroid SX-70 folding camera from Melby-based camera wizard Jake Threepwood. Mostly because he made a pool table-themed camera and it lived in my dreams for weeks. I had to own it, I had to travel with it.
But also, I’ve been taking instant photos every day of 2022 - a way to document every day and to remember that Every Day Has Nice Small Moments (a close friend once told me you can build a life out of those small, nice moments). I wanted to take a lot of instant photos on my trip because there’s something so nice about a photo you can hold, and a tangible record of What Happened (more than just documenting the day). Instant photos are also much easier to deal with than 35mm film - just point the camera and whatever comes out is The Photo.
Anyway, this is what happens when you let a financially-irresponsible Australian with a shiny new Polaroid camera loose in New York City for two entire months.
A quick big thank you to Brooklyn Film Camera for having a well-timed sale on expired film / for making my stock-up walks a pleasure and less shameful than it should have felt / helping validate the decision to document a long travel on instant film.
Less quickly: to every person whose mug is featured below: I have so many words. Too many of them. But most of them are thank you. Some of them are love ya.
You can interpret the rest.
- Jesse
something for your ears // something for your eyes
Music has been a large part of this travel (going to gigs / seeing music docos / watching jazz bands a bloody heap / listening to music on a friend’s couch as the day ebbed by, monster energy drink in hand / walking through the city finding myself tearing up when a certain song or a certain line hit).
So it’s only appropriate that there’s a playlist to go with these photos.
Have a scroll. Click on the images and you can swipe through.
If you like these photos, you’ll probably like the film piccies I took over two months in the city (more streets, more portraits, less chaos).