Portrait of Naeem Douglas at PolaCon NYC 2024. I had the pleasure of meeting and making several instant portraits of him at last year’s event. He is known by many as the “👑king of group portraits,” “mogul of group portraiture,” GM of @soulsinfocus, and a creative at MOMA.

Naeem greeted me at PolaCon this year with a smile; it was good to see him again. I renewed my promise to send him last year’s portrait scans (finally) and he promised to pose for a fresh portrait before the end of the day. He kept his promise and posed for me, and I am glad to report that I kept my promise as well, a few days after PolaCon… 🙂

When shooting Naeem on this expired film against a white background, you can see a color-shift due to the aging chemistry. Polaroid’s support site says the dark bluish stripe on the left 1/3 of the image is most likely due to age-related chemical pod inconsistencies, or — if it was stored properly — a manufacturing defect. We’ll never know which it was…

Details: polaroid.com/Why-do-my-photos-have-vertical-stripes

Subject: Naeem Douglas / @naeemdouglas_
Location: Worthless Studios, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Camera: Polaroid SLR 680SE (vintage)
Film: Polaroid 600 Color (New, expired 2022)
Photographer: Russ Murray

Naeem in action:

Couple of shots I made on iPhone while Naeem was directing Roman (@mystic_rage) at PolaCon. When he paused to load fresh film in his beloved Rollei SL66 medium-format, roll-film camera, I took a quick Polaroid portrait of Roman, which you can see here.

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The second PolaCon NYC 2024 event, sponsored by Polaroid, was held from May 17th — 19th, primarily at Worthless Studios in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. I went on Saturday the 18th and had a great time learning, playing with gear, meeting old friends, making new ones, and shooting a bunch of instant photos!

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See you tomorrow… 

// russ murray