APRIL 2025 PRINT SALE

“New York City like you’ve never seen it.” — Opening Ceremony.

Dear Friends,

I’ve been thinking about Walt Whitman again—Walt the yawper from rooftops, the container of multitudes, the poet of democracy. He believed fervently not just in the promise of democracy, but in the power of poets and artists to help shape it. For Whitman, poetry wasn’t a luxury—it was a vital force.

I’m not a poet with words, but I’ve spent years photographing New York City with a lensless pinhole camera, using long exposures and medium format film to transform the city into a moody, mysterious Gotham. These photographs are one of the ways I try to get at poetry.

It’s been a while since my last online sale, but this month I’m making four of my NYC pinhole photographs available for purchase. Through the end of April, you can buy signed, archival giclée prints in your choice of size:

Available Sizes + Prices
5 x 5 inches – $100
12 x 12 inches – $250
24 x 24 inches – $500
36 x 36 inches – $1000

Order by April 15 and receive 10% off any print size.

Bonus! Orders of all prints include a free 28-page zine featuring a selection of my NYC pinhole photos. Or you can just buy a copy of the zine, titled Lo-fi Photographs of the Great Metropolis, for $20.

Delivery: All orders will be securely shipped (or delivered) by mid-May, depending on when your order was made. If you're in NYC, I'll try to hand-deliver your print.

Scroll down for PURCHASING and to see the four PHOTOS, along with BACK STORIES of each image.

Thank you for supporting this work!

Warmly,

Stefan

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Feel free to email me at stefankillen@me.com with any questions.

Purchasing Photographs

1) Place Your Order

Please complete and submit the form below, indicating your name, preferred print size(s), and your shipping/delivery address. I’ll get back to you right away with payment instructions, which will be in two parts: print payment and shipping payment. Remember that print payments made by April 15 receive 10% off any print size!

2) Payments

Payment is in two parts:

1. Print payment, including NYS sales tax and mailing costs, is due now to reserve your photo. I will send you payment instructions for Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle as soon as I receive your order.

2. Shipping payment will be billed separately once your print is ready, based on size and location. I’ll make sure it’s packed securely and affordably. If you're in NYC, I’ll hand-deliver when possible to save you the shipping cost.

Purchasing the Zine

If you want to buy a zine without buying a print, you can do so here for $20 plus sales tax and shipping costs.

1) Place Your Order

Please complete and submit the form below, indicating your name, email, and shipping/delivery address.

2) Payments

As soon as I receive your order, I’ll contact you with the payment amount and instructions. Payments may be made by Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle.

The Photographs

Jane's Carousel back story:

Jane’s Carousel was a fitting subject for my Pinhole NY project—a years-long meditation on time and space using a lensless cardboard box camera. But beyond the obvious metaphor, which Joni Mitchell captured so beautifully in “The Circle Game”, who doesn’t love an old-fashioned carousel and the bright, brassy sound of a band organ?

Built in 1922, the carousel was originally located in Youngstown, Ohio. After the park closed, it was purchased at auction by Jane Walentas, who restored it over 22 years in her Dumbo studio—a stone’s throw from both my own studio and Fulton Ferry Landing, where Walt Whitman’s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” was born. Today, the carousel lives in a stunning glass pavilion designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Jean Nouvel.

When I went to photograph it in 2014, maybe for the third time, I set up my tripod outside the roped-off carousel. My earlier images were decent, but not especially surprising, and I wasn’t sure what I’d do differently this time. Then I remembered something a photographer friend once told me: If your photo isn’t good enough, you’re not close enough. So I bought a few tickets and climbed aboard with my son, Lee. I took about eight exposures—and bingo.

We’re captive on the carousel of time.

Manhattan Bridge back story:

One February morning in 2014, I arrived at my Dumbo studio to find the East River covered in what’s affectionately called pea soup fog. I had business work waiting, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some photos. I grabbed my pinhole camera, tripod, and two rolls of film, and headed down to the water.

My most successful images often come from a series of exposures. Since my pinhole camera has no viewfinder, I never really know what a photo will look like. Add to that how the camera distorts space, light, and time—and all I can do is set my conditions as carefully as possible, take multiple shots, and hope one of them is a keeper.

That morning, I took 24 exposures—mostly variations on the very subtle two scenes below in comments. But the two fog images in this sale, one of the Brooklyn Bridge and one of the Manhattan Bridge, were each captured in single shots. In both cases, I got lucky, which is generally how it works with pinhole photography.

Picking up newly developed film always feels like unwrapping a present: I never know what I’m going to get, or whether I’ll like what I see. Sometimes it takes weeks and multiple viewings to really see what’s there.

Not this time. Bingo! Not just once, but twice.

Thunderbolt Roller Coaster back story:

Sometimes it’s breaking the rules in art—intentionally or by accident—that produces the best results. Such was the happy case with my Thunderbolt roller coaster photo.

Pinhole photography typically requires long exposures—ranging from half a second on a bright, sunny day (using fast film, not paper), to five seconds on an overcast day, to ten minutes at sunset. Because of this, one of my own rules is to always use a tripod. But early on in my pinhole career, I didn’t own a tripod but would steady the camera by bracing it against a wall or some other fixed object to keep it from moving.

That’s what I did in 1992 when I visited Coney Island with a friend and took several photos of the old Thunderbolt roller coaster—immortalized in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall: “My analyst says I exaggerate my childhood memories, but I swear, I was brought up underneath the roller coaster in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn.”

At the time, the Thunderbolt stood fenced off in a field of weeds, slowly rotting after being shut down in 1982. Reaching through the fence, I steadied the camera by pressing it against a wooden post. But I must have nudged it during the exposure, because the resulting image was badly blurred.

Normally, that kind of blur would disqualify a photo. But in this case, it was perfect for the subject—jerky and noisy, like the roller coaster itself. Bingo. More than thirty years later, this image remains one of my favorites from a long career of engaging with the game of chance that is pinhole photography.

Brooklyn Bridge back story:

One February morning in 2014, I arrived at my Dumbo studio to find the East River covered in what’s affectionately called pea soup fog. I had business work waiting, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some photos. I grabbed my pinhole camera, tripod, and two rolls of film, and headed down to the water.

My most successful images often come from a series of exposures. Since my pinhole camera has no viewfinder, I never really know what a photo will look like. Add to that how the camera distorts space, light, and time—and all I can do is set my conditions as carefully as possible, take multiple shots, and hope one of them is a keeper.

That morning, I took 24 exposures—mostly variations on the very subtle two scenes below in comments. But the two fog images in this sale, one of the Brooklyn Bridge and one of the Manhattan Bridge, were each captured in single shots. In both cases, I got lucky, which is generally how it works with pinhole photography.

Picking up newly developed film always feels like unwrapping a present: I never know what I’m going to get, or whether I’ll like what I see. Sometimes it takes weeks and multiple viewings to really see what’s there.

Not this time. Bingo! Not just once, but twice.

A free copy of my Pinhole NY zine: Lo-fi Photographs of the Great Metropolis comes with any print purchase. Or, buy it separately for $20 plus sales tax and shipping.

Pinhole New York
I have been taking pinhole photographs of New York City since 1991. My images have been exhibited at the Alan Klotz Gallery and Soho Photo Gallery in New York and in group shows juried by, among others, Larry Gagosian and Molly Barnes. In addition to being in private collections throughout the US, Europe, and Japan, my photos are included in the acclaimed book Out of Focus: Pinhole Cameras and Pinhole Photographs; film and television productions such as Billions and Creed; and The Clocktower Restaurant at Ian Schrager’s New York EDITION hotel.