Making money as a photographer the old-fashioned way

That’s right,instant film,a phrase that sounds as dated as “electric typewriter.” In an age when digital photography offers instant gratification and cameras come in most phones,who would have thought a decent living could be had taking pictures with a vanishing technology? Mendes does,and well enough to do it full time. He can sometimes charge as much as $20 for a portrait.

“I’m the only one with this camera,” he said. “This is about a moment for nostalgia. People see these cameras in movies,but they’ve never seen one in person. But when they see this,they go: ‘Ooh. Ahh. Wow.’

As if on cue,a young man who had just taken a picture of his friends with a tiny digital camera looked longingly at Mendes’s equipment the way an econobox owner might swoon over a vintage Benz.

“I get that a lot,” Mendes said. “I really don’t even have to talk to get customers.”

He had started the afternoon outside Dean & Deluca on 49th Street: “Picture with the tree? Picture with the tree?” Maureen Behnke,visiting from New Jersey with her children,took him up on it. He posed them,shot the frame,pulled the film from the camera and tucked it under his arm. As they waited,he offered tips on what to do in the area.

“It was about a moment,” she said of her decision to be photographed. “I told my son he would never be this little again. In 20 years,he’ll be an adult.” “And you’ll have a classic,” Mendes said as he handed her back the 2-by-3-inch photo in a holiday frame.

Suitably suave at 70,he has been doing this for almost 40 years. He is stylish,decked in a red turtleneck,gray blazer and long black leather coat. As always,he sports a hat whose brim is clipped up with —what else? — a pin shaped like a Speed Graphic.

If you have been at any parade or major event in New York — or the Super Bowl or the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans — you have seen Mendes. You might even have had him snap your portrait.Though at this time of year he does straightforward images with the Christmas tree,he has also specialised in double exposures in which the subject appears twice,sometimes in different outfits. Yes,he knows Photoshop can let a novice achieve a similar effect. But that’s cheating.

“I can do it on the spot,” he said. “You don’t need a lot of stuff to make a shot. You don’t need lights and tripods. Just look at your subject,look at the light and shoot. You don’t need to take a thousand pictures to get a good picture. You need one good picture. One shot.”

As for those other guys selling pictures on the street,he pays them no mind. Competition,they are not.

“They’re not really photographers,more like picture hustlers,” he says of other photographers. “They just push a button. They don’t know aperture priority from shutter priority. This,this is me priority. All manual.”

“Most photographers don’t have a good picture of themselves,” he explained. “They think nobody can take as good a picture as they can. So,I prove them wrong. There’s good money there.”