Fragments of New York City
There’s a certain kind of romance in photographing New York City with a film camera. The energy of the streets, the constant movement and the endless mix of faces and architecture seems to demand a medium that feels alive, imperfect and tangible. On a trip to New York with fellow art students in February, I decided to leave the digital gear at home and work entirely with 35mm analogue film.
My camera of choice was my grandad’s Nikon N6006, which he bought in the early 90s when he lived in the States. It was like bringing the camera home in a way. In using it, it was my way of having a shared experience with someone who isn’t around anymore to share experiences with. When I lift the camera to my face, I look through the same viewfinder he looked through, click the same shutter he clicked and hear the same (annoyingly loud) film advance motor as the camera awaits the next shot.
Despite never having been to the US before, New York City seemed so familiar with it being the setting of many films and TV shows. I quickly exposed the 5 rolls I took with me as I wandered the streets; picking up a further 3 in art gallery gift shops.
When I returned home, I developed one single roll of film and decided to leave the rest in the bottom drawer of my fridge in a Ziplock bag. I thought it would be an interesting thing to look back on at the end of the year. A kind of time capsule of 2025. In December, I would develop all the rolls of film from New York and other escapades throughout the year.
This turned out to be a terrible mistake.
I emptied the fridge a fortnight ago to clean it and removed the bottom drawer to see a pool of gunky water – clearly something had leaked. My heart sank when I pulled out the Ziplock bag to find it had split at the bottom, submerging all the film in water.
I was furious at myself. Furious at whatever had leaked in the fridge. Furious at Ziplock.
I ordered the necessary chemicals to develop my film at home with a horrible sunken feeling that all my images were no more. I developed each roll individually, fearful that flaking emulsion from one bad roll might ruin the development of the entire batch.
The first roll out of the developing tank was quite bad, the images clearly discoloured, emulsion cracking off and many incomplete frames. The second was a disaster, just transparent cellulose, not a trace of an image. I continued to find very few ‘good’ frames on all the rolls I shot. It was a nightmare.
I scanned the negatives nonetheless. The streaks of discolouration, cracked emulsion, and uneven textures felt like failure. But as I looked closer, those imperfections became part of the story.
The damage transformed the images. The city’s glow bled into strange, organic shapes; light fractured in ways I could never have planned. The cracked emulsion and drying marks (I didn’t dare clean the film properly due to their fragility) turned the photographs into artefacts, physical records of both the place and the process. The water-damage, and my handling of the sticky film – getting it onto the spiral in the dark – both left fingerprints on the work.
It wasn’t what I intended, but it was an exaggerated example of why I love shooting film; it is less predictable and less sanitised in a world of pristine digital imagery. The flaws of the negs feel honest. They remind you that photography is not just about capturing a scene, it’s about the relationship between material and vision. Each imperfection is proof of the film’s journey through the city, through my fridge and then through my hands.
This series isn’t about a perfect photographic representation of New York. It’s about memory, decay, and the beauty of things that almost fall apart. The damaged negatives are a reminder that sometimes when we lose control, we gain character.
