Nyah in NYC

One of my favorite things to do is go to people houses and take photos of them. That was the theme and core idea of my first book Love and lust, intimate portraits in people’s homes. People being comfortable being themselves.
The first text Nyah sent me was “Hiya it’s Nyah.” I instantly liked her even more cause that’s a great greeting. I was a little late to the shoot cause I schlept a 50 lb light and stand, a 40lb back pack with my film cameras, and my pelican with my camera and laptop from Brooklyn to the upper west side via train. I was really tryna be a New Yorker and get the real feel. I probably should’ve bought gloves but we can’t always be prepared, sometimes we gotta go with the flow and narrowly avert frost bite. When I finally got to her place it was the cutest apartment I’ve been to in Manhattan. She had great decore including a lot of art she made herself. One of the first things I noticed was her video games so I promptly challenged her to Mario Kart. More on that later.
In this post I’m only sharing the film photos. Prior to the shoot, and another reason I was late, I took a trip to Photodom to get some good ol Porta 400 or Kodak good 200, 120 film. To my dismay they were out of both but they did have Cinestill 400d. I hadn’t shot any since i ordered from their Kickstarter. Never got the 220 but they sent the extra rolls. I want to try it in 4x5 sheets next. Anyway, I shot one roll with Shay and one with Nyah. When I got home from New York, I got super sick after I walked my dog a mile in the rain like a fool. The day after I recovered I decided I had to develop the film that day because I got some bad news and any time I’m fucked up I like to do art to calm down. During the fires in LA this year I packed my go bag and developed to rolls so they had enough time to dry if we needed to evacuate. I’m weird I know but it helps. Those pics were fire too, so yeah. I was too thirsty to see what I’d shot so instead of getting some new chems I used my kinda old Cinestill c41 developer that I hadn’t used since Jan 8th type shit. The chems were super dirty and kind of scared the film but Nyah liked it so I love it.
I’m still considering teaching film photo, lighting, and developing your own film. If you’re interested send me a message on IG or an email so I can force myself to start the classes. Would love to meet and develop with more creatives and build a bit of community to help each other explore and actualize our ideas.
