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Polaroids

Photography

Gorgeous, Mysterious Polaroids from the Bavarian Wilderness

By Emily Temple on

Photographer Bastian Kalous tromps around the woods and mountains near his home, deep in the Bavarian forest (plus a few far away places as well), with one of his many Polaroid cameras loaded with expired film. The resultant images, which we spotted over at Colossal, are gorgeous and somehow strange, the expired film warping the already ethereal images. As Kalous told Fuzion Magazine, “The fascination of taking pictures of nature is the perfection of imperfect spots or places. The objects I mostly find are crooked, rough, dead… simply natural… The films are going their own way, bringing their own mood and creating an impressive scenery. It’s a symbiosis between nature and Polaroid. Like they are having a baby… Hopefully Mother Nature lasts longer than my expired Polaroid stock.” Click through to see a few of our favorites from Kalous’s incredible collection, and then head here to immerse yourself in much more of his work. … Read More

Art

Caitlin Doherty’s Delightfully-Altered Vintage Polaroids

By Caroline Stanley on

Caitlin Doherty’s surreal mixed media work happens to combine two of our favorite things: vintage Polaroids and identical twins in matching outfits. Sourcing her images from a friend’s collection of photos snapped in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighborhood back in ’70s, the Canadian artist subtly tweaked the originals using collage, then painted over select surface areas, and inserted a duplicate version of the central figure. The resulting pocket-sized paintings are simultaneously charming and just a tiny bit creepy — kind of like a Flannery O’Connor short story.

“I like the idea that these paintings can be mistaken for original SX70 Polaroids at first glance, but upon closer inspection they are invented moments that never took place,” she explained to Trendland. So do we! Click through for a selection of our favorites, and visit her website for even more work from the series. … Read More

Art

Pixels and Polaroids: 8-Bit Characters in a Photographic World

By Emily Temple on

Every time you think we’ve taken retro cool as far as it can go, somebody takes it a little further. These awesome mixed media pieces by Jherin Miller, which we spotted over at trenchant, combine polaroid photography (or at least the evocation of polaroid photography) with pixellated’80s video game graphics. According to Miller, the idea was to experiment with making “the pixelated characters interact with things in the real world” — we just can’t stop imagining what it might be like to be a pixellated man living in a high-def world. Click through to see some images from the project, and then be sure to check out more of Miller’s work here. … Read More

Photography

Rhiannon Adam’s Hazy, Dreamy Beach Polaroids

By Judy Berman on

Sometimes an imperfect medium can be the perfect way to express a certain feeling. Polaroids are prone to overexposure and blurring; they often do inexplicable things to light both natural and artificial. But there’s absolutely no better way to capture the hazy, dreamy bliss of a summer afternoon at the beach. London-based photographer Rhiannon Adam’s blotchy, bleached-out Polaroids, shot in the British seaside town of Margate, evoke timeless memories of childhood days at the shore, their sparkles and fades reproducing the dizzy feeling you get when you’ve been staring into the sun too long. Click through to see some of our favorite photos from the collection, and visit Adam’s website to explore the rest of her Polaroid art. … Read More

Photography

Photo Gallery: William Miller’s “Ruined” Polaroids

By Caroline Stanley on

Most photographers would be upset if their camera unexpectedly failed them; for William Miller, these technological anomalies are an opportunity to really examine what constitutes a photograph. Using an old Polaroid SX-70 that he “rescued” at a yard sale, Miller snaps photos that are wildly unpredictable — and that’s precisely the point. “It sometimes spills out two pictures at a time and the film often gets stuck in the gears, exposing and mangling the images in unpredictable ways,” he has explained. “Over time I’ve figured out how to control and accentuate aspects of the camera’s flaws but the images themselves are always a surprise. Each one is determined by the idiosyncrasies of the film and the camera.” Click through to see a selection of the stunning results (which in most cases, look like crazy abstract paintings), and visit Miller’s website to learn more about his work as a photojournalist. … Read More

Photography

Captivating Photographs of Punk Hobos and Hippie Squatters

By Marina Galperina on

At eighteen, self-taught photographer Mike Brodie rode the rails of America, shooting fellow box car hoppers and traveling youths with a Polaroid SX-70. Nicknamed “The Polaroid Kidd,” over the course of three years, the accidental photojournalist captured a segment of American population that lives on the fringes of society whose only necessary comforts are a bonfire, a knife to defend against vermin, and no homestead anchors, save for the occasional communal squat. Not just an artifact of a particular kind of freedom, it’s a document of human bonds, movement itself, and the places you go when you let go.

“Photography has made me what I am. It pulls me in all directions. It gives and takes friends, and pushes me to move miles and miles,” the photographer explains. “My desire to photograph these people in the beginning is what led me to develop such great relationships with them; some being relationships that will last clear on ’til the day I die. I’m really lucky ’cause I never used to be this social.” Get voyeuristic with our slide show of our favorite Polaroid Kidd shots. … Read More

Photography

Barbara Crane’s Polaroid ‘Private Views’ of the ’80s

By Judy Berman on

Imagine that you’re at an incredibly cool early-’80s block party. You pass around your Polaroid camera and ask everyone you meet to take a snapshot. Somehow, you come away with a diverse but uniformly wonderful selection of intimate close-ups. This is exactly what Barbara Crane’s Private Views series, created between 1980 and 1984, feels like: A pretty girl in magenta lipstick stares out from a pay phone; pairs of friends and couples link arms or embrace, their faces out of frame; a kid in an Adidas shirt clutches a boombox. None of the images gives us the full story of what we’re seeing, but the partial views invite us to imagine the relationships between the people we only see as arms, torsos, and obscured faces. A selection of our favorite Private Views Polaroids, which we spotted at Booooooom, are after the jump. Click over to Higher Pictures to see many more. … Read More

Photography

Polaroid Masterpieces: Highlights from The WestLicht Collection

By Caroline Stanley on

Back in March the Vienna-based WestLicht Museum of Photography purchased the International Polaroid Collection from the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, saving it from being sold off piecemeal with the rest of the bankrupt company’s holdings. Made up of 4,400 photos by 800 international artists, including such well-known names as Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol, this massive body of work was shot primarily in the ’70s and ’80s using special custom made cameras and film that was not available on the market — all provided by Polaroid’s founder, Edwin Herbert Land. Beginning today, 350 of the images will go up on display in Austria; click through to view a selection of highlights from the collection, including our absolute favorite — ANDY SNEEZING. … Read More

Photography

Andy Warhol’s Small Pics of Big Shots

By Paul Laster on

“My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person,” declared Andy Warhol, the Pope of Pop. What could be easier than shooting quick-to-see Polaroid prints of celebrity pals that arrived daily on his “factory” doorstep? Andy’s also ironically remembered for stating, “Photographers feel guilty that all they do for a living is press a button,” which is exactly what he did for his instantaneous snapshots of Debbie Harry, Diana Ross, Yoko Ono, Dolly Parton, Schwarzenegger, and other boldface names currently assembled for Andy Warhol: Big Shot at New York’s Danziger Projects. … Read More