In October of 2016, I had the opportunity to work at the Out Of New York Photography Conference, as I had previously written about. On the final day of the conference, I went on Steve Simon’s street photography workshop. It was a chance I could not pass up, Steve is an incredible photographer, and I highly recommend that you pick up his book “The Passionate Photographer.” I have learned a lot from it. Knowing that I would be participating in his workshop, I decided to bring two rolls of my favorite film, Kodak Tri-X 400 Professional. I still love shooting film. It brings me back to the years I studied photography in high school and college. In the digital age, you have memory cards that can hold thousands of photos. If you only have one roll of film, you have 36 photos maximum (if shooting 35mm as I do). It forces you to compose much more carefully, make sure your settings are correct, because you have such a limited number of photos to take. That’s what I love about shooting film more than anything else.

That day, we went to several locations in New York. With only two rolls of film, I brought a small pocket digital camera to use once the film ran out. We started the day walking the High Line, from its southern entrance on 8th Ave by the Whitney Museum of American Art. We walked on the High Line up to 23rd St. It was a brisk morning, but the High Line was still bustling. It offered a great mix of people to photograph, some more friendly than others, but a lot of great opportunities. Not to mention the views looking down on the streets, as well as the NYC skyline. There is a mixture of old and new architecture along the way. It’s a great place to get familiar with the city.

When we got up to the walkway, we came upon a gentleman napping (or trying to) on one of the benches. The poor guy ended up with a dozen or so photographers getting his photo, but he did take it in good humor.

Further up, I spent a little time at a coffee stand

A little later, I came across a bongo player who was an absolute joy to talk to, and to listen to his playing.



He loved that I was shooting film, he talked to me about when he was younger, and his dabbling in photography. I could have talked to him for the better part of the morning, but, we had to move to our next location.

We headed over to the 23rd St. subway station to get to 57th and 5th. That corner is where Bill Cunningham had spent years photographing the people of New York for the New York Times. He had passed away during the summer of 2016, so we paid homage to him at his corner. I had less than half a roll of film left by the time we got there, but, I made the most of it. One side project I have started working on is photographing reflections in sunglasses, so I was able to get one from a nice woman who was gracious to let a total stranger “get in her face.”

That was one of the last shots I got that day on film. I loved having my old trusty Nikon FE2, it was like old times. I had just one lens, my old “go to” 50mm f/1.8 lens. I was shooting that day wide open, at f/1.8, as I wanted to get the very narrow depth of field you see in a lot of these photos. This wasn’t the first time recently I had shot film, I dusted off my film camera in 2015. This week, I’m buying some more rolls of film, and will continue to shoot film around Chicago when I have the opportunity. It’s way too much fun!