THE POLAROID AS ARTIST’S SKETCH

Before the advent of digital imaging, Polaroids were the only feedback working photographers had before exposing film. As we calibrated the Polaroids to our film, they were good ways to confirm lighting and exposure as well as composition, etc. Creative and art directors, editors, and clients, used them to confirm that our shots fit their planned layouts so they were bent, folded, and handled, with resultant streaks, stains, spots, and fingerprints; hence most are in pretty sad shape 30 to 40 years later.

But aesthetically they represent something more significant. Consider all the rage over the last 50 years about the sketches of the greatest artists...from Da Vinci to Rodin and Picasso to Warhol and beyond. The Polaroid is the first blush of creativity...the first attempt at capturing and expressing something whether as mundane as selling a garment or as profound as capturing the real spirit of an actress. It represents RAW, not refined, creativity.

Many of us photographers tacked them up on studio walls for fun but also as an ersatz portfolio to be viewed by anyone who came to the studio; presenting an informal idea of our past work. Some of us were smart enough to carefully take them down and store them when we retired from our studios. Here are many of mine…