by Amanda Beland

These are a collection of film photographs taken during the last few days that Brooklyn DIY space Shea Stadium was open at its Meadow Street location. Founded in 2009, it closed in June with plans to relocate.

I used a Nikon N6006 and a Minolta XD7 with film Fuji Superia 800 and 1600 (expired), Kodak Gold 200, Agfa Vista 200 and Ilford Black and White 400.

I took most photos during the daytime, but the space was relatively dark … something that posed a huge challenge and resulted in some noise in the photographs. I worked with the dark areas of the space by shining artificial light – when possible – but more often, letting the noise and the darkness speak for itself.  Shea Stadium has a feel of both light and dark and having some photos that weren’t completely sharp and focused are emblematic of some of the most memorable aspects of Shea. I also purposefully used expired film with a high ISO to help capture these light and dark moments.

I developed all the film in this series at Hunts Photo in Cambridge.

Many of the photographs are of accents of Shea – signs, furniture, details etc., – but some are of people, including my friend and colleague Elio DeLuca who was archiving the sound of the space while I archived the look.