The rediscovery of the sun always makes me reach for the SX-70. I don’t know how that works, but it does.

I only have 8 packs of Polaroid film left!

It took a couple of weeks, but I finally managed to take my first portrait. This is Ruben, I met him in Sunset Park last Sunday.

Honestly, this photograph was all Ruben’s idea. I was taking a picture of a storefront on 4th Avenue and he was sitting nearby—he actually came up and introduced himself to me. He asked if I would take a picture with him and his lottery tickets. I was completely floored and just went along with it.

I had unsuccessfully approached a couple of other people that week and was starting to wonder if I needed to rethink things. In the end, the opportunity just presented itself, and it worked out perfectly. I think I just need to be receptive and make myself available for these kinds of moments rather than trying to seek them out too aggressively.

Hanson Place

I have been using the SX-70 quite a bit lately. Here are a few more Polaroids from the last week or so. It is interesting to me how the seasons creep in, just last week felt like summer and now there are dead leaves on the ground and the sun is hiding by 5:30. So it goes.

Douglass Street

Bond Street

South Portland Avenue

It’s been a good week for the Polaroid pictures, which is good, because I’m running out of film. I have been slowly but surely fine-tuning my gallery of Brooklyn Polaroid images, with a focus on a tighter edit and also thinking quite a bit about sequence. I think I need about a dozen more images and then I’ll be ready to make one of these.

Bond Street

Carroll Street

I’ve been reading The Exposure Project blog for quite a while now for their great taste in photography, but I didn’t know much about the group itself until today. They are a photography collective, and they are having an exhibition and releasing a book of new work next month. The opening and release party is at Tillie’s in Forte Green on August 18.

Photo by Fran Osborn-Blaschke

Photo by Anastasia Cazabon

The details:

The Exposure Project
Tillie’s of Brooklyn
248 DeKalb Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11205

August 18- September 20
Opening Reception: Monday, August 18 from 7-9 pm

Includes photographs by Ben Alper, Anastasia Cazabon, Lauren Edwards, Kate Emerson, Adam Marcinek, Fran Osborn-Blaschke, Justin James Reed & Eric Watts

To be honest, I still don’t know anything about these characters, but it sounds good to me. See you there?