All you need to know about Polaroid

Everyone knows that Polaroid is a picture that is ready a few minutes after pressing the button on the camera. But, on the other hand, it also has another extremely significant feature: each polaroid image is unique, it cannot be repeated. The difference between it and ordinary photography is the same as between a drawing and an engraving. Polaroid captures fleeting reality only once, so it causes some impressionistic impulses - instantly capture the moment, immediately get the result and understand that everything has already changed in seconds. According to the generally accepted legend, the idea of ??a camera issuing snapshots somehow came to the mind of one three-year-old girl who wanted to see the picture right after she was photographed, and began to ask why this was impossible. A similar question probably occurred to many children, but not everyone had a father, the genius Edwin Land, who had long dealt with the problem of polarization of light, founded Polaroid and developed not only lenses for cameras and optics for sunglasses, but also airborne reconnaissance and homing devices shells. Land came up with the idea almost immediately, but it took about three years to implement it.

In 1947, Edwin Land introduced the first model of the instant photography apparatus, where the film after exposure was rolled between special rollers, with which reagents were applied to it for developing and fixing the image: thus, it was already ready for printing. The invention was convenient and easy to handle. The new Land 95 camera the next year went on sale at a price of $ 89.75, that is, with a focus on middle-class consumers. It is worth noting that Edwin Land still wanted to bring the polaroid out of the scope of domestic circulation. He perfectly understood that image means a lot, and it would not be superfluous to write his brainchild into the history of art, so he strongly encouraged famous photographers to use his invention, helped them organize exhibitions, bought up works. In the late 1950s, the famous Polaroid Photography Collection began to take shape. A unique collection of photographs, which, as already mentioned, existed only in a single copy.

The first to respond to Land’s call was landscape painter Ansel Adams, he tested the capabilities of the camera and subsequently helped in the formation of the collection. The works of Edward Weston, Paul Strand, etc. were bought. Also, the New York MOMA began to collect a collection of polaroids. This played a role in establishing the status of the polaroid. Further, meetings could be formed already from little-known, new names. It is worth saying that one of the features of polaroid photography is the fact that it is difficult to determine from it whether a professional photographer made it, a beginner or just an amateur. Polaroid is not studio photography. She is intimate and therefore always kind of warm and close. It depends only on the look, the light and the touch of a button.

The first black and white polaroids, due to the density of the card and the already forgotten, reverent attitude to the new product, resemble old daguerreotypes. From here comes the vintage style, for example, like that of Karl Baden. Of course, over time this feeling disappears, and the polaroid becomes valuable precisely because of its dynamism and impressionistic ability to snatch pieces of life. As for the colored polaroids that have appeared with the Policolor film since the beginning of the 1960s, their color rendition is of course interesting (especially recognizable is Time Zero Film). The popularity of polaroid images even forms a special stereotypical image of the 1960s: it seems that everything was especially bright and warm then.

Devil's Backbone II © Anna Tomczak

Equus © Anna Tomczak

In the 1970s, the phase of technical and aesthetic experiments began. The canvases are made up of pictures, they are scratched or scribbled onto the surface of the polaroid, as if arguing with its past status of irreversibility and self-sufficiency. Later, you can transfer the image from the card to other materials. In this case, special effects of texture and volume were possible, as, for example, in Sergio Tornagi fish. Polaroid is still considered to be something stylish and fashionable. Working with it is of a certain competitive nature: the camera is widespread and accessible, everyone has equal conditions, and at the same time I want to get an original result. Polaroid was actively used by Andy Warhol , Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, nude master Lucien Clergyu. There are portraits of Salvador Dali by the famous Philip Halsman. The most famous collages belong to David Hockney, who skillfully plays with crushing space into even polaroid squares, while creating an amazing multi-layer reality.

Due to their precise geometric shape, some models of polaroid cards give rise to ideas of Suprematist abstraction, as in Brel Bruno, photographing, in particular, various parts of buses. Classics of polaroid images are, of course, the plot “home” scenes, such as the work of Barbara Hitchcock, who later became the director of the Polaroid Collection. Probably, all existing instant photographs could cover half the globe. Indeed, the polaroid, despite the bankruptcy of the issuing company, is still popular today, and it is not the new device, but the old one - the older, the more interesting, because all this fits perfectly into the nostalgic fashion of vintage and the general post-modern discourse as a particularly significant brand of the past .

Winter © Cathleen Naundorf

Summer © Cathleen Naundorf

Winter © Cathleen Naundorf