Michael Watson’s The Wrestlers: Polaroid Portraits 2015-2018 collects a bunch of Polaroids (or, really, Impossible Project black frame black & whites) of amateur wrestlers, shot backstage at various events in Chicago and the Midwest, California, and Florida, in costume/character and more relaxed. I helped to kickstarter it back in January 2018, and it arrived in my …
Category Archives: Reviews
1970s Ricoh Compacts, part 1: the Ricoh 35 ZF
The Ricoh 35 ZF is a zone focus, shutter priority (and full manual) 35mm camera from 1976. With a 40mm f/2.8 lens, shutter speeds from 1/500 to 1/8 (plus B), and an ISO range of 25-800, there isn’t too much to worry about: set the shutter speed (1/250 or 1/500 in daylight), put the aperture …
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Unboxing ‘You Get Me?’
I acquired Mahtab Hussain’s You Get Me? as part of a Contact Sheet subscription renewal. Copublished by Mack and Light Work, the book is beautifully printed,* and the project itself—portraits of young, working class British Asian men and boys—is hard for me to talk about with any clarity.
Enter the Konica Wai Wai
Somehow, I’ve managed to be on Twitter at just the right time, twice, to catch generous offers from Dan K: first for a giveaway, through which I scored a bunch of different black & white films, some disposables, and some other stuff; the second to score 1 of 4 reloaded Konica Wai Wai disposables… I …
Rollei RPX 100 – a review in 3 parts
Back in October 2017, I was blessed to take part in one of Dan K’s generous giveaways over on Twitter. It consisted of a gift certificate to Camera Film Photo and shipping, and I picked up a bunch of black & white film that I hadn’t tried before, including 5 rolls of Rollei RPX 100 in …
Unboxing ‘Magnum Chronicles 01’
YouTube originally set this video as Private, claiming its content (a collection of images from Magnum Photographers of the Middle East over the last 50 or 75 years) might be disturbing to some viewers. I think this was auto-set because I included the subtitle in the video title or description… Magnum Chronicles 01: A Brief …
Kosmo Foto Mono at the Neighborhood Picnic
The weekend before Ramadan, the neighborhood got together for a picnic. Fun! About 5 minutes after it was supposed to start, I received a frantic call from brother Riyaz, one of the organizers. He was breathless. “Brother James… we need a photographer here… hurry.” I was happy to oblige, and, interestingly, I had just received …
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