New York Scenes 2010-2011. Brooklyn, New York, Coney island

Photos : Adrian WM Jones


Photo Documentary : New York Scenes 2010-2011

Shot using Olympus and Konica 35mm range finders from the 70's, using cheap film and CVS pharmacies to process the negatives probably seems like self sabotage. I decided to use this approach to achieve a vintage cinematic look to the images, part of me wishes they were shot on a Leica or digital even but then the gritty appeal would be lost and the ability to morph the year 2010 into something a little closer to the early 80's would be less within reach. If I was were to pin a cinematographic influence to these I would probably say Rocky. I find something very endearing about those Philadelphia scenes, and even though the subject is not even mildly related, the low budget completed in 30 days approach which was used to make Rocky is something which I wanted to adopt photographically, it's unconventional but allows you to capture a more rugged romantic depiction of a story.

The images are not of massive social commentary importance, they are a movie reel I had spinning through my head at the time, aspects of New York City life that I was tuning into as I spent more time there. Initially I was not a fan of the city but as my visits became more frequent (I was living between Cape Town and NYC visiting my girlfriend ..now wife ) I noticed that there was something distilled into the place from eras gone by that left its traces everywhere, and that is what I wanted to climb into and capture, tap into some of those daily New Yorker moments and sprinkle them with vintage visual romance.



Adrian WM Jones

Adrian Jones is a Connecticut based architectural photographer & documentary photographer. With over 20 years in the field he has worked in many areas of the film and photography industry and now uses his vast experience to focus on photographing architecture for architects and personal documentary projects.

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