Coney Island on Ilford HP5

These photos were shot on a quick trip up to Coney Island in summer 2025 with my girlfriend.
Being based in Philadelphia, I don’t get up to Coney Island much—usually I stick to the Jersey Shore, which is far closer. Recently, though, we’ve had a few reasons to be in the Brighton Beach area, so we decided to detour and wander around for the afternoon.

The weather was gloomy—unseasonably cold, damp, and overcast—so the black-and-white film did it justice. When I loaded the HP5, I was hoping for bright sun, but got quite the opposite. Still, I’m not disappointed with how the images turned out. The darker exposures really show off the grain in a way I surprisingly don’t hate. There’s just something about these that I really like.

It may be cliché to say black-and-white looks “old-timey,” but these shots—even for film—feel like they could’ve been made a hundred years ago. I don’t shoot much black-and-white normally, mostly opting for finer-grain color stocks. But projects like this make me want to put more B&W in rotation. Color is great, but it can be distracting—black-and-white forces you to think about composition and contrast, two things I always want to improve at.

Aside from the classic Coney Island structures—which I think came out fantastic on black-and-white—I loved shooting around the Brighton Beach subway. The stairwell picture may actually be my favorite of the roll… though that might just be because I like trains.