Posts by Zach Margolis

When planning for my week in NYC, I packed five film rolls: one specifically to shoot New York’s building corners, and then planned to shoot two on the Great Saunter, which should have left two for the rest of the week for whatever else I found.

This post is that whatever else, and it ended up being photos from three rolls of film (two Kodak Gold 200, one T-Max 100). The third role came from me purchasing more film on the trip. I made a stop at Camera West in SoHo, and used up some store credit to buy a roll of Portra 400 that I ended up using on the Saunter, freeing up a Kodak Gold 200 to appear here.

Usually I try to share things roughly chronologically because that’s how I like to tell stories. With all the walking and meandering, that would have made for a really chaotic post, so I decided to reorganize by subject.

• Plants
• Birds
• Portraits
• Architecture
• Neon signage
• Street-style

Plants

I can’t remember another trip to NYC that has felt as much like Spring as this trip did! Everywhere in the city, these little magenta petals practically popped off of the trunks of trees. I asked a gardener working on the High Line, who let me know they were Eastern red buds.

There were other nice plants too, like this planter off the sidewalk and Chinese maple on a quiet street near Washington Square Park.

Birds

Maybe there is some truth to everybody becoming birders in their thirties.

As I was wandering Central Park, this particular robin jumped out in front of me into the path, shaking a worm in its mouth. I grabbed at my camera and then it flew into some bushes, and I couldn’t get a clear shot, so I waited a bit and then walked away. Then suddenly it landed perpendicular, right in front of me on these steps, so I felt like it decided it was, in fact, ready for its photo. It waited for me to get my camera out, meter, and focus.

That moment kind of keyed me in to looking for birds the rest of the trip, so I caught a few pigeons and a few geese.

Portraits

I’m trying to get better at taking portraits, and got a good number on this trip! All the friends I saw were kind enough to pose for photos and let me share them here.

One day I was walking towards Central Park with my camera in hand. This friendly stranger above said something along the lines of “hey, can you get a photo of me?” I said sure! I explained that it was film, so I couldn’t give him a copy of it for another week or so, so I got his email.

As soon as I got these scans back, I looked up his email and sent him the photo. I was hoping for an acknowledgement, but instead I got a “mail undelivered” notification because that Gmail inbox was full. Sorry to this stranger, I hope we can show you this photo someday.

I got a few rangefinder mirror selfies too

Architecture

I love how New York has lots of old-old and new-new living together. Of course, I have many more photos of the Jenga Tower than fit in my building corners post!

I know a lot of locals don’t like the the skinny skyscrapers near Central Park, but I thought they were fun to look at.

There were lots of really interesting fascades too.

The brick buildings were also eye-catching, especially with reflections from nearby glass.

Neon signage

Maybe because I had just done my Fillmore Neon cataloging, but I noticed how many neon signs there were in New York and started to catalog just a few of them.

Street-style

This is my “everything else” of the “everything else” post. The main throughline through these is that they all feel like New York to me.

Golden hour lives up to its name.

In general, I shy away from taking street-style photos of strangers because I don’t like how there’s not a chance to ask for permission. For these people on the pier, I figured that they were far enough away to be anonymous that it would be ok.

Variety is the spice of life, and I am really enjoying how many of these shots turned out well.