Innovation Imagination: 50 Years of Polaroid Photography - Hardcover

When Edwin Land invented instant photography more than 50 years ago, he offered this thought on his scientific breakthrough: "The purpose of inventing instant photography was essentially aesthetic--to make available a new medium of expression to numerous individuals who have artistic interest in the world around them." Having hired Ansel Adams in 1948 to test the limits of this new medium, Land was clearly committed to his science as a tool of the visual arts. This volume gives us a selective look at the Polaroid Collection, established in the 1960s to honor the works of artists using instant photography. There are remarkable images here that don't just stretch notions of Polaroid photography but of photography in general. The bizarre, the ordinary, and the multiple image all coexist in this book to demonstrate how imagination can work within the parameters of the Polaroid film, with its limited control of color and generally the small, square format. It is all to the good--a reminder of the power of a less-appreciated medium in the hands of a roster of 20th-century photographers. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-David Bryant, New Canaan P.L., CT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.