Sometimes

I’m a Baltimore based photographer and camera maker. I make instant film backs for medium format cameras, and convert 1950s Polaroid Land cameras to Instax wide to breath in a new life in these amazing machines. There are hundreds of my instant film backs and conversions out there in the wild enabling photographers to shoot instant film with their medium format film cameras. I also take photos using my own production backs and my Mamiya RB67, Fuji GX680III, Mamiya Universal Press and an assortment of Instax Wide converted cameras.

I have been taking photos since 1986, first on 35mm film, then on digital, then a purchase of a Pentax 645N lured me back into film world and I stuck with medium format – I love medium format slides and yes, I project them. I also sometimes shoot large format, especially when travelling. Thanks to a longtime photographer friend, Alex Conu, I discovered polaroid packfilm shooting in Mamiya RB67 cameras, and I promptly bought an RB67 just to do that. Packfilm discontinuation came 4 months later and I was forced to find a replacement, and after hacking three Impossible Labs into Polaroid backs using parts from old packfilm backs and a lot of epoxy, tape, and sanding, and cutting my fingers a lot in the process, I bought my first 3d printer. I now have 4 active printers and a semi commercial line of several Polaroid Backs and Instax Wide cameras. I do shoot most formats, on all available media, but I focus on instant media for my public facing galleries, as they are also an advertisement for my line of instant backs and cameras.

I don’t know if I have a style. I don’t have any formal photography training and conceptualizing my shots is not yet a thought out process. I shoot mostly portraits, some street scenes, and some music photography, and they pose different sets of challenges. I don’t use a flash outside the studio so I am limited by the lens and film iso (800 at best, 640 most of the time), but this is enough for window light shots or moody bar scenes.

While travelling through my native Romania 5 ot 6 years back I stopped in Horezu, a locally famous ceramic center in the Carpathians foothills, famed for its rooster themed ceramic. I drove up on a side road in the village, looking for a smaller artisan shop. And I found one, really close to a 13th century church, beautifully adorned on the outside with painted biblical scenes, but with all characters dressed in traditional Romanian garb. The shop was small, and there were potted flowers everywhere around the yard. I entered, met the spouse of the advertised master potter, and low and behold, _she_ was the master potter in fact. I asked her if I can take some photos and I did, shot several polaroids, waited for them to develop while she took me and some other visitors around the shop and offered them to her after I took some photos of the prints. She was absolutely delighted! My wife and I returned to the same shop last year, also accompanied by my then teenage daughter. Mrs master potter recognized me right away, and my photos were sitting proudly in her shop! I give people tangible memories, and in these days of phone photography, sometimes is the only physical photo of them they will have for years. I am grateful for the little happiness I can bring this way.

Project? Such a loosely defined thing for me. I have a lot of interesting photos of baristas in coffee shops. So maybe that’s a project. It’s a combination of the always interesting stories behind the people who work as baristas, I have yet to see one who is not artistically inclined, and the good opportunities for photos with the kind of light I like.

A basic scanner and minimal photo editing software is plenty for retouching scans of instant photos. In a pinch, my phone and snapseed also work, especially since I give away most of my shots.

I am format limited, prints that are naturally 6x10cm or 7x7cm in size. Portraits are the best subject for such media and I conform. So I have cute vacation shots on Instax Wide? Of course! But my focus is on taking people pictures, usually with one subject.

I was a Fotografiska NY for the opening of Terry O’Neill’s “Stars” exhibition, and I was carrying my Mamiya RB67 fitted with my one of my own production Polaroid Backs. And right next to me I see Faye Dunaway. I didn’t know Terry was her late ex-husband, I just knew there was a photograph of her, lounging by the poolside post Oscar party. She was trailed by a camera man, I said hello, we looked at a few photos together, and she moved on to other people. I really wanted a photo of her, I did ask, but she was noncommittal in the beginning. In a terrible paparazzi move, I trailed her from afar as she was moving through the floor, and took one photo of her from 10 ft or so, very low shutter speed, terrible light, and lots of movement blur. As she was heading out she turned to me and asked “so you want that photo?”. We setup under bright lights in the halway, her assistant and I positioned her, I took a few incident light measurements and got the shot, and gave her my card. She had only one question before the shot “you _are_ a professional photographer, right?”. My answer was as it always is, “sometimes”. Cause I am not. And it showed. In the rush of the setup, the integrating sphere of my light-meter had slid out of the way. The shot ended up being severely overexposed.

My dear friend Alex Conu, now working in fashion photography in Paris, is my inspiration. He has such a consistent and disciplined body of work. When I grow up, I want to be like him.

We all think we look like our mirror image. At least for Polaroids I take, it’s always that “now, this looks like me” reaction that’s so rewarding. Because of the way Polaroids are exposed (through the front), they come out as mirror reversed when shot in regular cameras like a Mamiya RB67. But this is the image people have of them, what they see in the mirror so it _is_ their true self they see. Mirrors as truth is a fascinating concept.

My process is project dependent. For my music photos is pretty straightforward, as musicians are used to being photographed, so it’s mostly a waiting game to get a good shot when the artist is moving the least, I am limited to slow shutter speeds under typical show lighting. For my baristas ongoing series, it’s a curiosity driven process. Most people I meet that work in coffeeshops are artists themselves, with a good share of fellow photographers, so I take out the camera du jour and wait for a question. Photographs follow.

Be ready. Know the light, have your camera approximately ready, and think quickly. Composition is important, but sometimes you just need to take that shot. Just do it.

I use all the cameras I design and make, so that helps me get it right, since I change the design until I am happy. Being the end user definitely guides you to better looking and better working final products. I am fully invested into making as many existing medium format cameras work with instant film and continuously look into ways to innovate. 

I really hack and adapt existing medium format systems to shoot instant film, adding minimum bells and whistles. Even the film counter is analogue and it needs to be turned by hand.

Those Polaroids are shot with your existing and beloved Mamiya RB67. Or Mamiya RZ67. Or Polaroid 600SE. And it’s truly unique and truly a moment frozen in time, and impossible to manipulate after the fact.

Phones can’t shoot film. Or instant film. And the dslrs and mirrorless camera market is booming and everyone’s in the game. I think phones are already replacing point and shoots as the prefered way of taking photos of family and friends or travel photos, and you CAN even shoot feature films with some phones these days, but professionals demand an image quality phones cannot provide. Until they squeeze an aps-c or 4/3 sized cmos sensor in a phone, phones will be relegated to taking cute instagram photos at the most.