Instant photography, most notably Polaroid, was a creative way to capture a scene. The medium was an especially useful tool for fashion. Yet landscape and documentary photographers also tripped the light fantastic.
Unlike other film choices, instant photography was a scene-testing tool, and an immediate way to be creative. The Golden Age fell upon the medium from the 70s through to the 90s. Here, it reached many fields and photographers, like the five we are looking at today.
Ansel Adams - Landscape
It would be a difficult task to find a more famous landscape photographer than Ansel Adams. His most prolific work was that of American National Parks. Yellow Stone being the most famous. Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid took Ansel’s image in 1961, where Adams noted “…it was a one-minute picture! And that excited me to no end.”
From that point on, he jumped headfirst into the medium. After much experimenting, he discovered his favorite film - Type 55. This film made both a reusable large-format negative and a positive print, allowing for reprints. Ansel usually captured his scenes in black and white but was smitten by color Polaroids, especially with the SX-70.
Ansel Adams - 1979 - Yosemite Falls
Helmut Newton - Fashion
Helmut Newton was a world-famous fashion and nude photographer. He was prolific to the point of having a dedicated photography museum in Berlin. He pushed fashion in a more provocative direction through the theme of sexuality. He also took the fashion photography scene from the studio into the streets. This allowed for more freedom and experimentation.
Along his journey, he used Polaroids to see how lighting and composition affected a scene. An instant image could show him which areas needed more focus. In 1992, he released a book of Polaroids called Pola Woman. Some criticized it for being unperfect. “But that was exactly what was exciting – the spontaneity, the speed” Helmut replied.
Helmut Newton – 1997 - Cigar Industry, Milan
Andy Warhol – Pop Art
Andy Warhol is an artist that doesn’t need an introduction. If there is one artist throughout history that would match the Polaroid medium, it’s the godfather of pop art. He became obsessed with Polaroid, going for the oversized Big Shot – a beast of a camera with a fixed lens of 220mm.
Andy preferred quantity over quality and liked the instant medium for selfies and portraits. He captured famous and unknown people alike. Warhol was a perfect fit for Polaroid; a mix of fine art creator and everyday photographer. “There’s something about the camera that makes the person look just right.” His book Polaroids 1958-1987 is a shining example of its application in portraiture.
Andy Warhol – 1977 - Muhammad Ali
Walker Evans - Documentary
Walker Evans was an American photojournalist. He was famous for his documentary work on the Great Depression. This commissioned project came from the Farm Security Administration (FSA). His camera of choice was a large format 8x10 system - slow to set up and slower to use. They were great for portraits and architecture especially due to the removal of parallax errors.
Evans started using Polaroid in his final years, documenting architecture with the infamous SX-70. An inexhaustible amount of film promised by Polaroid, allowed him to step back into simple scenes. "Nobody should touch a Polaroid until he's over 60” is his quote. He understood how to use the instant medium only after years of experimentation and struggle.
Walker Evans -
David Hockney – Still Life
David took a different approach to Polaroid photography than many others did. A curator left behind some instant film during a home visit, which intrigued Hockney enough to experiment. What came were images that no one expected - a large image made up of a collection of smaller, overlapping Polaroid photographs.
His work resembles that of Cubism, presenting a scene or object from different angles in a 2-dimensional space. Sometimes, Hockney played with time, showing a scene with the same subject in different places. “If you put six pictures together, you look at them six times. This is more what it’s like to look at someone.”
David Hockney – 1982 – Still Life Blue Guitar 4th April 1982