Testing LomoChrome Metropolis: Zayira Ray
2 24 Share TweetNYC-based photographer Zayira Ray tested out our brand new film, LomoChrome Metropolis. Check out her results here.
Hi Zayira! Introduce yourself to the Lomography community.
Hi! My name is Zayira, I'm a 19-year-old portrait and fashion photographer from New York City. I've been shooting for around five years now; and currently, I'm studying photography at NYU Tisch!
How did you first discover your passion for photography?
I first got into photography right before my freshman year of high school, when I started taking photos on my iPhone mainly of architecture around NYC. It quickly turned into a passion as I experimented with different types of photography, purchased a DSLR, and eventually found my love for portraiture. Before that, I had been drawing and painting since I was little; so I've always been very artistically inclined, but I found photography to be my ideal medium!
What do you enjoy most about shooting film?
I enjoy shooting film because it makes me a more patient and observant photographer. I usually limit myself to around two rolls per shoot, so I can really hone in on a concept and think about each photograph that I'm making. It's also such a fun process to see the images you make later, and to be able to gauge them after some time has passed — it's very different from the kind of instant gratification that digital offers, which isn't always a good thing. I've also found that shooting analog has benefitted my digital practice a lot, and just generally made me a more conscious and careful photographer.
Tell us more about your experience with the Metropolis film. What was your concept behind this shoot?
Because the Metropolis film has a very desaturated and gritty look, I wanted to contextualize and style the photographs to match that aesthetic and enhance the film. I chose to photograph Dawn in an area in Williamsburg with really interesting street art, urban architecture, and a skate park. For the street photos, I focused in on more barren-looking scenes with a variety of tones and lines, so that the Metropolis' high-contrast look would visually enhance a simple, isolated landscape. With some pops of color in the backdrops and in the styling, I aimed to emphasize the tonality and mood of the Metropolis film in an industrial setting.
Pick a photo and tell us the story behind it.
For these two photos, I held up a silver backdrop to my camera lens and photographed Dawn through it. I shot the same photo at two different F-Stops to create a variation in texture and detail, and the difference between the two turned out to be super interesting. I love the soft focus and bokeh in the portrait with the shallow aperture, and the texture and abstraction in the second photograph.
What was your favorite thing about shooting with the Metropolis ?
The Metropolis film was really fun to work with because of its specific, unique aesthetic that challenged me as a photographer and pushed me outside of my comfort zone visually. It made me a lot more conscious of all the visual components in play — the colors, styling, lines, etc — in translation with the tonal quality of the film. It brought a really interesting and moody feel to my images that I don't usually have, but I love it!
Enjoy the way these photos look? Order your LomoChrome Metropolis here.
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