NY Coney Island's Luna Park on Medium Format Film Topped With Street Photography

Loaded with a CineStill 400D and Mamiya 7ii, with the very right amount of people in my photo session.

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Everything started when I woke up on a Mother’s Day Sunday morning and told to myself: “that’s it, today is the day, Coney Island in medium format”.

I knew would not be so crowded due to Mother’s Day, because people are usually relocating to their families houses for family lunch arrangements by the early evening. Coney Island Luna Park is something I always wanted to photography in high-quality medium, but I was waiting for the right weather and light conditions to do so.

I got the Mamiya 7ii with the 65mm lens and started driving, not knowing what time the park open, or it if was gonna be closed at all. The only thing I was thinking was if it was gonna be easy to find parking or not, and luckily it was.

I arrived around 10:10 AM, found pretty much empty premises, not only on the park, but in the whole pier, so I took the chance to photograph as quickly as possible because I knew the place would start to get swarmed with people.

The CineStill 400D showed what it’s made of: incredible color, contrast, latitude, and just a bit of halation (less than in 35mm, due to frame size and the nature of the effect). BAM! Look at these color tones!

After walking 3 minutes, I proceeded to the park, accelerating my pace due to the anxiety of getting people in my shots, I wanted an empty area. I was photographing an attraction called Thunderbolt, when there was a boy riding his bike, he stopped and posed for me, and in a matter of literally 3 seconds, I scored this shot:

I think there’s a relation about the camera you are using and the street photography shots you make. I call this The RedDot Effect, and it happens when the camera you are using is so nice, that people sympathize with you, making your shots better.

The Mamiya 7ii is a *beautiful* camera, and as I was going to confirm later in the day, it’s not a coincidence that this boy posed for me. I had someone else posing for me at my very last shot of this session.

I was also casually well-dressed at that sunny day, and I really think this helps…

Thanks to my super duper wife Maysa for capturing photos of me taking photos. This makes a good making of session, and I really appreciate.

I proceeded my duty. Gates were still closed, the park was about to open, it’s free admission meaning you pay only for the rides you wanna go. I knew I could quickly get in as soon as the gates opened, without having to get in a line or so.

I took this picture below, and I immediately realized I was wasting time with shots like these because that was a bottom-top shot with low chances of people cluttering it, meaning I could do these later, all in all, people don’t fly around like birds.

As I was progressing and waiting for the park to open, I saw a woman coming with her umbrella, I quickly ran towards the entrance of the park and camped for around 5 seconds, that was the time I had, I waited for her to pass and clicked at the right time. I need to say that if I didn’t have a camera with Aperture priority, I would be very likely to miss the timing in this shot:

I felt a quiet sense of accomplishment. My wife noticed how swiftly I reacted to photograph the woman. There's something about shooting medium format, it encourages a more deliberate thing, it’s like my brain go on steroids to think what best I could do with this very limited film roll. It feels less like taking photos and more like curating moments. Out of 10 exposures in the first film roll, EIGHT are images I'd consider framing on a wall. It's rare to have a session yield so many keepers, and again, I’m pretty sure this is $omething medium-format related.

Alright, gates are open everyone! Park is officially open, time to get in. I quickly went in and took this one. Again, no people.

Time to change film. Argh, the film change inconvenience. I got park access, it was empty, and I was spending precious seconds changing film. That’s the downside of shooting 120 fim, with only 10 exposures, you have to plan accordingly, because the end of the roll happens almost 4 times more frequent than 35mm.

After changing rolls, I got some more shots of the Park.

After just 3 minutes, people started getting in, and there were no empty scenes anymore. But my work was done, I kinda got everything I wanted, it was time to go back to the boardwalk and explore a bit, because there are some restaurants in the area that were also empty, just with some employees. The first one was called Paul’s Daughter:

And the second one was Tom’s Coney Island:

Alright, I had taken 18 photos, and I just had two more to finish the rolls and call it a day. I must say again: medium format is all about quality over quantity, and I was already happy with what I got.

That’s when I saw some guys dancing, and without knowing that would be the crem de la crem, the cherry at the top of the sundae, the gran finale, I approached to take some pictures and photographed this guy, who was right there dancing and interacting with people. After asking if I could take pictures of him (something I always do), I got this…

I took the first one, advanced the film, and he started posing shot after shot, waiting for me to rewind the film to change pose, like an experienced model…

Then, this shot happened…

Ladies and Gentlemen, here lies what I think it’s the best street photography I’ve ever taken, in medium format, as the last shot of the roll.

I unfortunately didn’t have more frames to advance! As I wrote before, medium format film is kinda inconvenient with just 10 exposures. That was it. Quality over quantity at the most, he continued posing, but I ran out of film, and there was nothing I could do. But I got satisfied with this one.

(I need to start thinking about shooting 120, but it’s not that common…)

Also, I must say it would be absolutely disgusting from my part to approach this guy, taking photos of him with my thousand dollar camera and a slight and undocumented permission from himself, and not giving him nothing in return, so I gave him $10, that’s all I had with me at the time. I promise that if I had more with my I would give him more.

I think that everybody should do this gesture when photographing people that are exposing themselves. I think it’s not fair for us to photograph them, get internet relevance, and don’t give nothing back. And also, if you’re thinking $10 is nothing, well, he instantly made more than I ever made with this publication 😂.

Jokes aside, of course I am not comparing myself with him, but reality is that just a very small and select people make money out of things on the internet, me not included, that’s reality.

So, here’s an extended story about this guy. When I sent this picture to my friend

Justin Allen- Photographer

, he told me something like: “Oh! He is the King Bing Bong, a.k.a. Joe Byron”, he’s famous dude!

“No shit!”, said I!

After researching a bit, I confirmed: this guy is a famous living internet meme! He went viral some years ago, and according to The-Independent Website, people crowdfunded $35,000 to help him out! “He should be getting all the funds from that video, he’s a star,” one fan wrote, referring to a viral TikTok video with his image.

I agree with that. I agree that people should get part of the money that is made out of their image, but the problem is that many of us also don’t see a penny about anything we post on the internet, so it’s also hard to help :(

What do you think? Leave a comment and subscribe! I would LOVE to have you around here more often! And what do you think about these shots? I personally think they’re dope, especially the King Bing Bong one, but I’m biased ¯\_(ツ)_/¯