Taking photography in a New Direction

The summer issue of Aperture magazine arrived at my door a couple days ago. It came with a supplement titled “Made in Polaroid”. Apparently, Ansel Adams was heavily involved in Polaroid’s early days, helping them research how to make it relevant to artists. Since he was a founder of Aperture magazine, the two organizations have always had a close relationship. As I recently read on Wikipedia, Polaroid stopped making cameras and film. The point of this supplement was to communicate what the company that bought the rights to the Polaroid name will be doing with it. The guys over at The Impossible Project will be creating instant film for the new line of Polaroid cameras. The supplement also functioned as a showcase of what various famous artists are doing with Polaroid. One artist in particular caught my eye: Maurizio Galimberti. He does Polaroid collages landscapes and portraits such as the following collage of Benicio del Toro.

What strikes me about this photo is that, as a student of 3D animation, it brings to mind the image maps used to create facial textures for 3D characters. Here’s an example:

But it reminds me even more of Hockney-esque photos such as:

So we end up with a mix of computer animation and an old technique combining with Polaroid film to make a new body of work. This is how art grows and enters new domains. I’ll keep an eye on Polaroid to see where it goes from here.

• Polaroid