“I really don’t even have to talk to get customers.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/nyreg … html?_r=1&

great guy
see him outside BH all the time

I used his camera to take photograph of him outside ICP.  It's a great rig and as clean as can be.  He does wonderful, wonderful work and is a true gentleman to boot.

Is that a second flash he has on the bottom?

This is a very cool story.  Thanks for sharing.  I will check him out the next time I am in NYC

Shaft with a camera!...hahah great line!

Pretty cool Thanks for sharing. I've never seen him before

What amazes me is that he can frame his photos so well, it's a bitch to frame properly when you use the smaller 3x4 peel-apart films in a 4x5 camera. The polaroid back is offset in an asymmetric way. Framing seems like a complete guess sometimes.

I met Mr. Mendes in my student years and he's the same amazing man everyday (easy to say but hard to do for at least 20 years)

I learned a few tricks from him, that gave me a great respect for the most humble activity in our profession "the street photographer" I have done many photos, and have been the subject, of this men in the USA, Mexico, Central America and Europe. Their work is part an amazing photographic skill to deliver with one single shot, part a magician act and an entertainers. I have pics of Mexican street photographers with dioramas of famous sight seeing places and wood donkeys to pose kids or the Guatemalan photographers that have a b&w portable darkroom and sell contact prints.

Anyway, I love this guys and I still think that the 90 seconds an instant film takes to develop is the exact time proportion between instant gratification and exciting "show me, show me" expectation.

He stopped by the Film Photography Podcast meetup at PhotoPlus Expo in 2011 and took a group photo. He was also interviewed for the podcast. A true gentleman!