Back to the beginning
For the last part of this Adventure in New York series, I'm going back to the first roll I shot on this trip. And there's a good reason why: I did something I had never done before and loved the results. In the first blog, I documented how I pushed Palm 400 Panchromatic for nighttime photography on the second night of the trip. In the last blog, I documented how I pushed CineStill 800t to 1600 on the third and fourth nights. But on the first night, mere hours after we landed, I took a roll of 800t with me and pushed it two stops, to 3200. Oddly, I think the best photos of all ten rolls I shot, were made with this roll. Here's why.
Dinner Time in Midtown Manhattan
So let's travel back in time to the first night. We had just put our bags in our rooms and everyone was starving. It was about 11:30 in the evening when I loaded my M3 up with a roll of CineStill 800t. I changed the dial on my TTArtisan Light Meter II to read as ISO 3200 and pushed aside the thoughts that this was going to fail.
We stepped onto 6th Avenue and I made the first exposure of the roll. It is one of those sexy, half-frame shots with light leaks blocking the first half of the frame because I never fire off more than one test shot. It's almost a shame that this didn't record the entire image because the depth of field, sharpness, and overall vibe is fantastic. However, the most interesting part of the frame is there, so to this I say "c'est la vie," and move on! And move on we did, to Ray's Pizza around the corner.
But not before I came upon this halal street vendor. I had no way of knowing how great this would turn out at the time of making the photograph, but I hoped it was everything I thought it would be. And today, all I can think is, "THIS IS WHY I LOVE CINESTILL!!"
It looks like a still out of a movie. It's so cinematic. But of course it is. This is reworked Kodak Vision3 film, after all.
The color balance is fantastic. I half expected there to be some wild color shifts due to pushing this film two stops. But even at ISO 3200, the white balance is spot on and the contrast is not more or less than I would expect from any photograph made at 3200. And the red halation? Drool worthy. No, it's not for everyone. Yes, it is for me!
100 yards from the halal vendor we finally walked into Ray's Pizza. Now, I'm personally a bigger fan of Joe's - call me a tourist if you want, but that pizza is straight fire! - but Ray's definitely hits the spot after a long flight and an argument at the front desk while checking in.
Whether inside or outside of the pizza joint, CineStill handled itself majestically. The shot of the man outside of Ray's is nothing short of exposure perfection. With a digital sensor, this shot would be either wildly over- or underexposed. Exposure bracketing would be necessary to nail exposure. Yet CineStill does this without a problem.
My favorite of these is the frame of the group leaving Ray's, walking back to the hotel. It looks exactly the way I love to see New York, the way it is often seen in my favorite movies from the 70's and 80's.
And then there's this frame of the two people cleaning the street. This is one of my favorite photographs I have ever made. Full stop. I actually overrode my light meter on this one. Recognizing that the scene was so dark, and wanting to keep information in my highlights, I overexposed this one by about half a stop. Subsequently, the shadows are mostly crushed, but the scene playing out under the fluorescent lights is lit beautifully. Every now and then I make a photo with film that upon the pressing of the shutter release button I can feel in my bones that I just made a banger. This is one of those. It speaks to me in a big way. I don't normally speak about my photography in those terms. But sometimes you have to take a step back and just critique your work. It's part of the critical process. This one just happens to work.
Goodnight, Sleepy Heads
After dinner we took the kids back to the hotel, left them with the parents and other chaperones and resigned ourselves to make the most of the night. We had a reservation at Balthazar we had missed thanks to the snafu with check-in, but decided we would salvage what was left of the night.
Outside of our hotel, we waited for our Uber to the West Village. Steph posted up against the light pole and was practically begging for me to press the shutter release button. I opened my aperture as wide as I could - pretty wide considering this was what I've lovingly dubbed the TTArtisan Summilux 50 - and adjusted my shutter speed to gain an even exposure.
The TTArtisan 50mm f1.4 really is a monster lens. It is so sharp in the center and the bokeh is so creamy. I keep looking for vintage Leica 50 Rigids and not pulling the trigger. Why would I when I get results like these with the TTArtisan?
We got to Marie's Crisis, in the West Village, about ten minutes later. We were exhausted from a rather long day. But we pushed on, making the most of our time in New York, even if that meant visiting our favorite places after lights out for our students. I had never been to Marie's Crisis before, but Steph had been a few times and raved about the joint. Photographs are largely discouraged to protect their patrons, but I found an angle in which I could make a portrait of Steph without anyone else in the frame. I thought it was important to make a portrait of Steph at one of her favorite places in the world. Shortly after this photograph, we moved piano-side and sang showtunes for a while before calling it a night.
It was roughly three in the morning by the time we stepped outside. Steph was looking beautiful, as always, and I took the opportunity to make some more portraits of her before our Uber arrived. With the Marie's Crisis logo lit behind her, blown out in bokeh, I'll always remember this frame. Even in the darkest of light, CineStill handled the lighting deftly. I don't think I'm ever shooting color at night again without CineStill 800t.
ISO 3200...but it's morning
We got about three hours of sleep, but were up before the film club kids because of course we were. As detailed in the second part of this series, we decided on an early morning stroll through Central Park. But before we got there we took our students to Liberty Bagels in Midtown. I had a few exposures left on this roll of CineStill and had a decision to make: I could try to shoot in the early morning light at ISO 3200, or I could save the few exposures left for the evening.
I had packed my Leicaflex SL for this reason specifically. So, I loaded it up with some Kodak Pro Image 100 and shot around a bit. But I was realizing that the aperture and shutter speed settings I was using at ISO 100 could likely be adjusted to allow me to shoot at ISO 3200 if I composed carefully. I adjusted my light meter and sure enough, I could make it work. So I gave it a shot.
The results were surprising, to say the least. I never would have thought to shoot at ISO 3200 in the early morning, but the skyscrapers were blocking out most of the sunlight and the slivers that were coming through were blowing highlights in a classic film fashion, or at least I hoped they would. This first one, of Steph in the foreground and a few of our film club boys in the middle ground, shows exactly how well this worked out for me. This is a shot that may have worked out with the Leicaflex SL, mounted with a 28mm lens, but tightening up a bit with the 50mm on my M3 allowed this to feel a little more claustrophobic and "New York-y."
Shots like this one, of a nearly empty Midtown street, are a rare sight. With the light just barely peeking over the buildings in the distance, the highlights produce that classic CineStill red halation, but in a way that is not typical. The entire sky shows red halation. What a beautiful look!
I would have loved a human subject to arrive upon this scene, but I did not wait to find one. We were hungry for bagels and coffee.
But what this scene does give me is an understanding for how to shoot CineStill in daytime. High contrast scenes, where blowing highlights is not a detractor work well! At least for me, these scenes work. I am interested now in attempting something like this in Brickell, here in Miami, as I think this look would represent Miami at least as well as it does New York, the way I see New York.
Final Focus
This five-part series has taught me a lot. It has allowed me to reflect on something that I have wanted to do for a long time, but lacked the discipline and confidence to do...just shoot film! I took a digital camera with me out of fear and made approximately ten photos with the camera, all on the first day and in about a five-minute period in which I was between rolls and wanted to snap a few photos before reloading. It was left in the hotel for the remainder of the trip along with my second film body, the Leicaflex SL.
I learned that a smaller set up works well for me. It allows me to just focus on making photographs instead of the minutia of photography, like which focal length to choose or which body to use. All but one of these ten rolls was shot using one camera and lens, my Leica M3 and 50mm lens. This is such a freeing realization and one I will take with me moving forward.
But just as importantly, I learned that I do, in fact, have the discipline and confidence to shoot film exclusively. In fact, I even had these rolls developed piecemeal, delaying the gratification even further. I developed the black and white negative rolls and slide rolls first as these would take longest. After two weeks, I had those five rolls back and began editing them, analyzing them, learning from them, and writing about them. Throughout that process I sent off the color negative rolls and did the same as they arrived. The whole process made me better appreciate the delayed gratification of shooting film. It also made me less concerned with having something to post on social media and more concerned with being in the moment and capturing it.
I am in love with the photos I made on this trip. Sure, there are a few missed exposures, but doesn't this happen with digital photos as well? I don't see myself getting rid of my digital cameras because it is how clients expect a photographer to shoot and deliver their photographs. I have, so far, not encountered any clients looking specifically for film photography packages. And as I've said before, photography is not my bread and butter, but it is more than a hobby for me. Then again, because of how intimate and personal this is for me, I enjoy that I am reserving film for myself, my friends, and my family.
I'm glad I made this trip with my M3. I have fallen in love with this camera and the photographs I make with it. I can't wait for my annual adventure in New York next October. But why wait for then? I've already made another adventure solely with film, with a Veteran's Day weekend at Universal Studios Orlando shot exclusively with Kodak Portra 160 and UltraMax 400. I'll be developing those rolls soon and you better believe there will be more for me to write about. For now, however, I'll keep looking at these.
More CineStill 800t Pushed to 3200
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