multi-media artist Lucas Samaras is well known for
his abstractly expressionistic ‘‘autopolaroids’’ and
‘‘photo-transformations.’’ The SX-70 has also been
productively used by Robert Heinecken, especially
in his ‘‘He:/She:’’ series of the 1970s that combine
trenchant texts with snapshot-like images. Various
Polaroid processes have been explored by Marie
Cosindas, who creates jewel-like color compositions
using the instant process, and Rosamond Purcell,
who began experimenting with PIn the late years of
the twentieth century, David Levinthal and Ameri-
can photographers Joyce Tenneson and Ellen Carey
have explored the process; Levinthal creating quirky
set-ups with toys, Tenneson affecting portraits, and
Carey striking layered images and abstractions.
Despite this variety of aesthetic and practical
applications, instant photography is, even today,
best known for its social function as a medium for
personal or snapshot photography. Land’s goal of
‘‘absolute one-step photography’’ was always a
democratic one and the SX-70 and its descendants
have had a unique role in the realm of vernacular
photographic practice. The instant camera produces
a photograph unlike any other, and one that accent-
uates the core facets of the snapshot image. Instant
photography embodies an air of playfulness and
mystery but also an inherently incidental quality.
The instant photograph, particularly in the vernacu-
lar mode, feels at once precious, because it is unique
and not easily reproduced, and yet disposable, not
worth reproducing. It trades on its immediacy, not its
posterity. The novelty of the photographic process,
where one takes a picture just to see it develop, calls
attention to the role of amateur photography as not
only a means of documentation but also a leisure
activity in its own right in many contemporary cul-
tures. But the photograph’s instantaneousness is per-
haps most significant because of the way that it
condenses the meaning of a variety of snapshot prac-
tices into a single moment. The instant photograph
not only documents a moment to be reviewed and
remembered later but also becomes present in that
moment. Gratification is instant and intimate as the
Polaroid is inevitably passed around to be viewed
and discussed. If the photograph is an unflattering
one, the subject may immediately discard it. If it is a
good snapshot, it can be injected into the social
narrative right away, uniting its viewers as the net-
work through which the photograph circulates. And
as incidental as the instant snapshot may be, it holds
the nostalgic charge of both a photographic record
and a physical memento, an affective potency that
digital photography may never quite achieve.
CatherineZuromskis
Seealso: Adams, Ansel; Close, Chuck; Evans,
Walker; Heinecken, Robert; Levinthal, David;
Polaroid Corporation; Vernacular Photography;
Wegman, WilliamFurther Reading
Adams, Ansel.Polaroid Land Photography Manual: A
Technical Handbook.New York: Morgan & Morgan,
Inc., 1963.
Land, Edwin H. ‘‘A New One-step Photographic Process.’’
Journal of the Optical Society of America, 37, no. 2 (1947).
———. ‘‘Absolute One-step Photography.’’ The Photo-
graphic Journal, 114, no. 7 (1974).
Olshaker, Mark.The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the
Polaroid Experience.New York: Stein and Day, 1978.
Sealfon, Peggy.The Magic of Instant Photography.Boston:
CBI Publishing Company, Inc., 1983.
Sullivan, Constance.Legacy of Light.New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1987.
Wensberg, Peter C.Land’s Polaroid: A Company and the
Man Who Invented It.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com-
pany, 1987.Lucas Samaras, Panorama, 11/26/84, Polaroid print assemblage, 1984, 10^7 = 8 361 = 600
(27.6291.6 cm), Museum purchase.
[Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, New York]
INSTANT PHOTOGRAPHY