Photography Chat with Merlin

It was really nice to connect with Sarah and hear about her story. From humble beginnings with a Canon AE-1 Program to a Pentax 67 she jumped into the world of large format with a Wista 4x5 before moving into the wild world of 8x10. We talked about how photography is an interesting tool to use to connect with community and her experiences with it. If you missed the live you’ll have a good time listening to the recording. Thank you for hanging out with me Sarah :)

Here is a little more about her.

"Blurb: Sarah Stellino is a self-taught large format film photographer based in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a queer woman who is passionate about helping folks within the LGBQTIA+ community feel seen and worthy through portraiture. Sarah is currently in the beginning stages of creating her first large body of work - Queering Rural Spaces - which aims to challenge the assumption that queer culture begins at the doorstep of urban cities. In her portraiture practice, she primarily uses large-format black and white film, and enjoys taking a hands-on approach to her portraits by developing her own film and making prints in the darkroom."

Follow Sarah at https://www.instagram.com/sarahstellinophoto/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

I had a great time chatting with Starla. We got a little distracted at the start and talked about work for a bit but we did get into photo chat. We talked about the photo community and how awesome it is. Her kids and her practice and we got into our mutual love for Lomography. We were all over the map on this one and it was a real blast. I hope you have as much fun listening to Starla as I did chatting with her!

Here's a little more about Starla stolen from her website.

"Starla Dawn is a freelance photographer new to Clarksville, TN moving here from sunny San Diego, CA. She was born in rural Kentucky and raised in Huntsville, AL but has had the privilege of living bi-coastally over the last decade.

Starla is a self-taught artist whose photographic work is an expression of her creativity as well as a reflection of those she works with. She hopes to showcase the many facets and dualities that are intrinsic to life. She believes everything is interesting and captivating when it's shown in the right light.

She specializes in events, behind-the-scenes documentary and is most known for her colorful 35mm double exposures. She is the winner of the 2015 Atlanta Raw Artists: Photographer of the Year, FotoWeekDC Fine Art Award 2016, and Ten and One: Annual Lomography Awards, Monochrome Award 2016."

Follow Starla at https://www.instagram.com/starladawnphoto/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

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Oh man, Mike and I got into some interesting chats tonight. We meandered all over the place from conspiracies theories, food, and different topics around technology availability and the ethics of tech. But every time we wandered we were able to bring it back to a photography-related thing. It was so great chatting with Mike and I can’t wait to catch up with him someday soon to grab a burger!

Mike is equal parts photographer, designer, and gear nerd, lover of film and all things analog, living in California with his wife and two kids. He is also the mastermind behind Shoot Film Co.

Follow Mike at https://www.instagram.com/themikepadua/

Check out Shoot Film Co. at https://www.instagram.com/shootfilmco/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

Oh man, this was a fun chat with Ben. We unsurprisingly spent a lot of time talking about instant film and talking about the Polaroid Fuji rivalry (we love them both, we really do) there was some chat about The Room and Ben shared some details about Sweet Boy University. If you missed out on the energetic live don’t sleep on this recording. It was a real blast.

"I am a director/editor and photographer from New York. My affinity for analog got me entangled in YouTube, where I've been bopping and popping on my instant film channel In An Instant. I love to capture the design of human life, study how we shaped our surroundings, and the evolution of our chosen aesthetics. Plus faces, I love faces!"

Follow Ben at https://www.instagram.com/the.instantgram/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

Apologies for the poor audio in this chat. We were having some technical difficulties. We chatted about how she got into photography and then into alternative processes. Shared some love around Polaroid. Then she talked about her work with Analog Forever Magazine and some of her more memorable interviews she has done. It was a fun chat and we will definitely have her back when the internet gods are in a better mood!

“Niniane Kelley is a fine art photographer living and working in San Francisco and Lake County, California. A native of the Bay Area, she is a San Jose State University graduate, earning a BFA in Photography in 2008.

Drawn to photography for both the immediacy of the image making process and the intrinsic alchemy of the darkroom ritual, she crafts the majority of her imagery using traditional 19th century processes which give each piece its own unique character.

After generating an extensive portfolio working with the human form, she emerged from the sequestered studio environment and began to focus on the quiet beauty of the North State rural landscape. Embracing photography’s implied narrative structure, much of her current work functions as a form of autobiography, chronicling her frequent, unencumbered explorations of Northern California’s pastoral and largely unpopulated interior.

But never one to cease experimentation, she is also simultaneously developing new complementary bodies of work using Polaroid and plastic cameras to bring fresh perspective to both her figure and landscape work.

In addition to producing photographic images, Kelley is also extensively involved in alternative processes education and research. Often teaching workshops in the Bay Area and surrounding environs, she most recently worked as a photographer and manager at San Francisco’s tintype portrait studio, Photobooth.”

Follow Niniane at https://www.instagram.com/ninianek/

Check out Analog Forever at https://www.instagram.com/analogforeverzine/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

With love from Lubbock, I mean Denton. If you don’t get it we’ll you’ll just have to watch the episode. Zane is awesome and it was so good chatting it out with him. We got really nerdy about Polaroid, like deeply nerdy. I don’t think we’ve ever gone that deep on the chat before. Talked about the love of mechanical cameras and some of the projects Zane is mulling. We talked about his involvement with the Open SX70 Project and some of the awesome contributions he’s made to the project. And then we talked turkey about Texas. Can’t wait to catch up in person and have a meal at mi casita with you man. 

"Hi! I’m Zane Pollard and I am a hobbyist film photographer, sx-70 repairman, and contributor to the opensx70 project. My first foray into film photography was when I got my first film SLR, a Pentax k1000, around 8 years ago. I immediately got hooked on the process of developing and scanning my own film and kept going deeper and deeper into it. Shortly after that, I went into medium format and then finally into my current favorite camera, the polaroid sx-70. I bought my first model 1 and have been shooting on the medium ever since. This led me to get into repairing them and now writing software to control them via the opensx70 platform."

Follow Zane at https://www.instagram.com/zanepollard/

Check out Open SX70 at https://www.instagram.com/opensx70/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

I ended up taking a little trip down memory lane chatting with Morgan. Talking about Cranbrook and the Kootenays brought up some old memories. We talked a lot about live music and what it was like being in the scene in Vancouver in the early 2000s. He also shared with us his experience in starting up his own photography business and his experiences with neurodiversity. Had a great time chatting with Morgan, thank you to everyone who tuned in and hung out with us.

"A blurb about me - by Morgan Turner

I took a photo class way back in grade 11, which was 99/2000, and kinda knew then that photo was going to be something I’d keep in my life. In ’03 I went to film school over in Van, because I wanted to get into shooting “extreme sports” videos, music videos, and that sort of thing for a career path. I’d been shooting 35mm stills since high school, and a year after film school, decided to sell all my video gear and go digital on the photo front, and I’ve been pursuing photography as a career since. I’m self-taught for all the photo side of things and have shot a pretty broad range of subject matter. I had my first taste of getting paid for it with shooting weddings and families around ’08 and realized that genre wasn’t my cup of tea. I moved in the direction of commercial photography but had to pursue other careers in the meantime to keep a paycheque happening. I’ve officially been self-employed shooting full time since the end of April 2019, and have managed to keep my business afloat amidst the craziness that’s been this covid pandemic."

Follow Morgan at https://www.instagram.com/mturnerphoto/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

I appreciate Jeremy as a friend because he has always challenged me to think different and see the world around me differently. I think tonight’s chat was more like a public version of the chats he and I would have over a beer at Eddie's in Kensington Market or while having pho on Ossington. We talked about his Paste Platz project and he elaborated on the work that went into putting it together and how he gave different artists a voice. We talked about the value of wheat paste and the importance of sharing creations locally. Our conversation as they usually do got a little deep and we touched on society, communities, and the current state of the world we are living in. I enjoyed this talk and I hope you did or do as well.

"Jeremy Lynch is an experimental photographer/wheatpaste artist; who happens to be anti-classist and is also bored of capitalism, exhibitions, curators, and galleries."

Follow Jeremy at https://www.instagram.com/jumblefacefoto/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

The chat with Han has been one of my most interesting to date. It was rad getting to know her more and hear about what her experience with photography has been and what her experience in the regular world is like. Content warning there are some stories of sex work and law enforcement stuff so just a heads up. The chat was lively and we all had such a great time, if you weren’t there for the live I recommend checking out the video.

Han is currently bridge hopping between Oakland and San Francisco. When she's not shooting medium format analog photos, you'll find her pitching a tent in the mountains or desert.

Follow Han at https://www.instagram.com/hawnfawn/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/

I had a lot of fun chatting with Liza she is a very interesting person. We talked about how she got started and what her experience was like going from film to digital and back to film again. She shared with us how much she enjoys travel and shooting while on adventures. We talked about cars for a little bit which was kind of fun for a change, It’s always a treat to chat with another petrol head. We had some interesting discussions around the future of humanity and overall talked about the importance of community. Here is a little more about Liza.

"Hi everyone! I'm Liza and I am a hobby film photographer based in and around Toronto. I've had my foot in visual arts since childhood primarily with drawing and painting, but fell in love with photography in high school. After shooting digital for several years, I purchased my first film camera about 2 years ago on a whim and haven't looked back since! Picking up a film camera has brought back my passion for photography and pushed me to continue developing my skills with every shot I take. I mainly shoot during my travels, with the goal of capturing the feeling of a moment and place alongside its beauty. Additionally, my film cameras often join me when attending various automotive events. Outside of photography I have a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology."

Follow Liza at https://www.instagram.com/35mm.digital/

Photography Chat is a weekly Instagram Live @merlindb hosts every Thursday at 5pmPST/8pmEST

Give me a follow if you want to see the episodes live https://www.instagram.com/merlindb/