“Emily Landau,” 1981  © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Courtesy of The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie

(more…)

All images © Amanda Marsalis & Automatic Books

Photographer Amanda Marsalis was in Venice for a friend’s gallery opening when the publishers of Automatic Books noticed her making Polaroid photographs of flowers. An avid Polaroid user, Marsalis began photographing flowers as her remaining instant film stock dwindled. Though she’d created a zine of some of the photographs, she hadn’t planned on doing much else with her “little project.” The Automatic Books publishers asked Marsalis if they could make a book of her Polaroids, and Reproduction, a lovely 102-page, hand-bound volume came to be. Writes Marsalis in a statement that appears on the back cover of the book: “Reproduction for me is three things: The purpose of a flower, the way the book is being printed, and a woman’s fertility/sexuality. Myself being the woman. I feel in a tradition of classic photographers shooting still lives as an exercise in image making and self examination.”

© Arthur Bondar

Photographer Arthur Bondar has been making portraits of Ukrainian World War II veterans. He explains, “I’ve made this project during the last two years. I shoot with a classic instant camera–a Polaroid 600 Close Up–and old Polaroid 600 film. The main impetus for this story was when my grandmother, a veteran of World War II, died. Then I realized how many things I wanted to ask her. But I had a second chance because my other grandmother and her sister are veterans also. I decided to use Polaroid film because all these people will disappear like Polaroid film will fade, and all that we’ll have after they are gone are their signatures and letters. I found these people throughout Ukraine, during celebrations of Victory Day (9th of May) and other holidays, in the street, at bus and train stations, everywhere. Some subjects were unable to venture out, so I visited them at their houses in small villages and talked with them. They were so happy because nobody is interested in their life nowadays.”  Bondar’s project was included in the 2010 Magnum Expression Awards short-list and selected as the First Prize for Pikto’s Top Pick Competition in Canada.

(more…)