Coney Island off season is wonderful to photograph. This is a large yard where signs are painted.

 Two members of the Polar Bears club a group of individuals who swim or take a dip every day of the year. They had taken a brief dip on this cold early spring day and were sort of getting warmed in the sun and then try their luck fishing. One could say that they were chilling.

 Coney Island, Brooklyn, off season shot with a Nikon F and a Spiratone fish eye lens. Spiratone was an outfit that created unique gadgets at very reasonable prices. It had one store on 32 St. Manhattan and another on Northern Bld,. Queens. Truly fascinating stores. The film was Ektachrome.

 Boy did I love my first medium format camera, a Yashikamat 124. Coney Island April of 1975 using Ektachrome 120 film. The colors and resolution are just superb. I had many more 120 format cameras such as the Yashikamat 124-2, a Minolta Rolleicord, a Koni-Omega, Mamyias of various kinds and finally a couple Rolleis including the one used by my dear mentor and teacher, Josef Breitenbach that I treasure like no other camera. Yes indeed, I loved this format. 

 Vintage shot, winter of 1974, of Coney Island's Surf Avenue under the famous Cyclone roller coaster. The place has now been rehabilitated but it has lost it's old charm. Leica M-2 with Ektachrome.

 Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC in the fall of 1975. Shot on Ektachrome with a Yashikamat 124 my first 6X6 camera. 

 Coney Island, off season. October 1973. Leica M-4 and Kodak Tri-X

 Coney Island in October 1973 after the season. I love this picture because a person could save thousands in psychoanalysis just with a palm reading. Leica M-4 with the 50mm Summicron on Kodachrome II.  

 As I have mentioned previously, Coney Island in Brooklyn wet though a terrible period of decline during the seventies and eighties. This has now been remedied. We have the famous parachute ride(top photo) that sat on pathetic base (bottom Picture). The film was Kodachrome II and the camera was a Nikon F.

 A photo of Coney Island on a winter day back in 1973. This was a period of serious decline for this famous venue in Brooklyn, NYC. It has been resurrected now and has become quite trendy.This photo was shot on Kodachrome II  even though it loos black and white. I used a Leica M-4 with the superlative 35mm Summicron lens. I have a whole series of these images that I post occasionally.

 In the seventies Coney Island went through a rather depressing period o neglect.This was recently reversed as the area has become trendy and full of new and high tech rides. Of course many of the old establishments have survived. Here we see this it on a wintry and icy day way back in 1974. Shot with a Leica M-4 and the sublime 35mm F2 Summicron lens on Ektachrome.

 An abandoned roller coaster in Coney Island in the late nineties before the area's revival. Shot with my first digicam, a Nikon Coolpix 990. One of the images that made me accept digital as a viable medium.

 Coney Island in the eighties. A classic street photography shot. Leica M-4 with the 50mm Summicron. Shot originally on Agfachrome that it had turned very magenta so I converted to black and white.

 One of my earliest digital images. Shot in 2000 with a Canon Coolpix 990. This images convinced that digital had great potential. Just looking at that clear sky without dust or scratches blew my mind. This is the old Tornado roller coaster in Coney Island, Brooklyn NYC, that has been replaced with a modern one  Coney Island is undergoing a kind of gentrification.

 Another shot from the vault. The Cyclone ride in Cooney Island, Brooklyn, NYC, taken from the Wonder Wheel. I used a Leica M with the splendid 35mm Summicron F 2 on  Kodak Kodachrome II.

Coney Island was in a terrible state in the seventies. Since then, it has been gentrified and even become sort of upscale. This image was made with a Leica M4 and the 50mm Summicron F 2 lens. As lways, the film was Kodak Tri-X.
 

 There's something unsettling when visiting Coney Island off season. It's like looking at a skeleton. But it always allows the taking of interesting photos.

Who needs expensive psychoanalysts?

 

Reader and advisor

Sometimes only black and white does justice to an image. A Leica with a Summicron lens also helps. Long ago in the fall when Coney Island goes to sleep but is full of photo ops. Naturally, the film was Kodak Tri-X Pan.

Coney Island in the seventies

The seventies saw a terrible decline in New York City. This was especially true of Coney Island in Brooklyn that had been all but abandoned and because of ill conceived Plans by the state's housing authority, it was almost razed in favor of more public housing that soon became new high rise slums. This was before gentrification that also had it's negative aspects. At any rate, Coney Island has made a great come back. Here we see that very famous parachute ride in total decay. Today it's restored as a monument not as a ride and is wonderfully lit up at night. Of course things were much different then. These are 35mm Ektachrome slides that I developed in Unicolor chemicals. The colors are not as good as Kodachrome II but nothing ever was. The classic bluish cast of Ektachrome is evident in the resulting scans.