I'm a gadget geek.
I always have been. I love a good, well thought out piece of technology. So when I saw Melbourne based photographer Chris Cincotta using the Canon Selphy CP1500 printer in his street photography reels on Instagram, I knew I had to have one.
Chris snaps photos of the people of Melbourne then uses his printer to print a 6x4 image, mounting it in a frame on the street and presents it to his models on the spot. I enjoy watching his reels because of the sheer amount of joy he brings to the subjects of his portraits.
So I bought one. And Steve from Arcanery Productions and I headed to Auckland to test it out.
Soft launch over lunch
Believe it or not, I'm a little bit shy at times. Leaping in to interacting with complete strangers in the street isn't exactly my idea of fun most days. So I decided to "soft launch" my little project while grabbing lunch on a recent trip to Auckland. I took a few snaps of the folks who made our lunch at Saigon Social and threw a poorly lit, weirdly warm image through the printer and presented it to them.
The crew from Saigon Social in Auckland
Their reaction totally, utterly blew me away. They were so stoked with the framed print, that they put it up on their counter for all of their customers to see straight away!
I'm not sure I was entirely ready for their reaction... However I definitely wasn't ready for the absolute thrill I got from gifting them their image. I was instantly hooked.
Brent
Next stop was K Road. I'd intended to pop up there just to get some 120 film for my TLR from the folks at Junktion. As we walked into the Atrium we noticed a group of folks waiting on burgers while one of them played guitar. Of course I asked if I could snap a couple of shots. And what happened next became my first ever Instagram reel.
Turns out - just like me - Brent and his mates were also off to Iron Maiden later that night. I'm not sure if anyone clearly remembers, but I may or may not have been invited to shoot a wedding in Taranaki at some stage?
Now I was absolutely FIZZING and couldn't wait to get more!!
Mark, his daughters and the birth of the Bren Murrell fan club.
Steve and I had a bit of time to kill before the concert, so we strolled up and down Queen Street for an hour or so just snapping photos of people, birds, buildings and each other. Just as we were beginning to think about getting back to our hotel room to organise dinner, we saw the Westley clan thundering down the street towards us.
Denim. Leather. Pink hair. Torn clothing. Iron Maiden tees. Absolutely no doubt where this group of badasses were planning to spend their evening. As we photographed them, Mark threw up his best metal horns and I stopped them to say hi and ask for a few posed shots. Mark beamed. This was his second Iron Maiden concert and his three daughters' first. He'd splurged on some VIP tickets for the whole family and was clearly proud as punch of all them.
We snapped, said our farewells and left. And immediately turned around to follow them down Queen Street to try and find a power outlet to fire them off a print. To say we made Mark's day was an understatement! When we left them, two of his daughters were heading off to get tattoos, with the third proudly pointing out she had no tattoos of her own.
We bumped into the clan at the concert later. In spite of their being literally thousands of people jammed into Spark Arena, they were all sitting about 10 rows in front of us. I belted down the aisle just after the support act finished to say hi. When they saw me they all threw their hands in the air and shouted "BREEEEEENNNNNNN!!", then proudly showed off their new tattoos. ALL of the daughters had ended up getting one, even the one who'd had none when we met them earlier.
SUCH. A. BUZZ.
I've been fortunate enough to have had a bunch of interactions with them all on the socials in the last week, and I've loved every single one of them.
So what's next?
I take my camera and printer with me every time I head into the city now. I just can't get enough of the absolute joy that this brings to people! I'm not saying I'm addicted but...
If you want to see more then I fully recommend giving me a follow on Instagram.
