The 52 Project, Week 38: March NYC Trip Part I

Fanning through an inbox one late January evening, I opened up an email from none other than the host of the Film Photography Podcast, Michael Raso. Apparently, fan reception from the first two recorded episodes had gone well enough that another month of podcasts was in my future. At the same time, Lauren was looking for any excuse to make her way out to NYC for some interviews and portfolio reviews with some BIG name publishers. A match made in heaven? I certainly thought so. ^__^

Portra 400 beasts that grain, even @ ISO 3200!!

 Some fumbling around with schedules and running around like headless chickens later, Lauren and I found ourselves spending a long weekend in New Jersey, with a few days blocked off for NYC.

Our first day there, we got into our hotel pretty quickly, considering the 9 hour drive, checked in, and headed straight off for Manhattan for a night on the town. After seeing all the sites we could from 7pm onward, we stopped off in Times Square for some fun and slightly more than planned out portraits. This was serious business, so a test Polaroid was even taken to make sure the horrendously underexposed film was at least metered correctly.

The results aren't anything to shrug off either. Click either of the two Lauren portraits to view a larger size, but the images stay pretty clear with relatively pleasing grain throughout.

A tad more grain, but still great!Enough film banter, this was quite a long trip with many interesting things going on, so I'll cut right back to the story.

Later on that night/early the next morning, continuous rains in New Jersey along Rt. 23 had gotten bad enough that we were woken up ~4am to evacuate our hotel. Normally, Lauren and I both being chill people, we wouldn't have minded the temporary discomfort, but this Friday morning was VERY different from others. Less than six hours from our evacuation time, Lauren had to be well rested, cleaned up, in NYC, and ready for her big, BIG interview with Harper Collins Publishers (they're HUGE, Google them). Anywho, we made it through with minimal sleep, and pressed on through another busy morning in Manhattan. 

Easily the coolest guy in NYC!After an incredibly successful interview and celebratory mega-burritos at Chipotle, Lauren and I continued our quest in NYC south-bound towards The Impossible Project NYC Space. Lauren didn't really take much convincing to go, but just in case she did, I'd previously setup a meeting with my Film Photography Podcast Print Exchange buddy, Antonio Alvarez. An awesome photographer and all around great guy, Antonio was kind enough to not only spend some time with us at impossible, but give us a guided mini-tour around Soho, treat us to some Two Boots Pizza, and even give us some of his awesome Polaroid Spectra prints!

This film loves purples and blues! On the last leg of our trip out and about with Antonio, we started passing by all of these great little nook-and-cranny shops that you just don't see in little-'ol Findlay, OH. Compelled as I was, I managed to snag a few candids of some NYC barber shops in full swing late Friday night.

Sadly, since this post is already looking pretty lengthy, I'm going to sum it up here. Thursday and Friday were the mere tip of the iceberg of awesome that was our long weekend trip to NYC. More from the FPP side of the experience next week.

Something Good: Portra 400, shot @ 3200, pushed to only 800, prints and scans beautifully!

Something Bad: Lots of fluorescent lighting and/or overcast haze can cause excessive fogging-type grain in photos at such a high sensitivity. I haven't seen grain strcuture like this since shooting Fuji Pro 800Z in direct overcast cloudy haze.

Something Learned: New Portra 400 is luck freakin' duct tape, more on this later.

Next Week: One of the best weekends ever, minus the whole driving in Jersey thing.