griff-polaroid-01
Polaroids are real, tangible, immediate. To a small child watching them develop, they are magic.
Polaroids are unmistakable and instantaneously recognizable. "Ah, that's a Polaroid..."
The Greeks has encaustics (pigmented wax), and many artists today still work in encaustic The Romans had fresco, a difficult and unwieldy medium that is still available should someone want to use it. Silverpoint, lithography, drypoint; all still options for visual artists. Sculpture, weaving, furniture, and so on... every craft and art can still be executed in the media that has been available to its artisans for centuries.
Then there is photography. Newton & Windsor goes out of business, painters can always purchase another brand of oil or acrylic. Sculptors will never run out of things to carve, weld together, or otherwise manipulate. Photographers are not so lucky.
The fate of all photographic media - the very tools on which a photographer's means of expression depend - is decided entirely by the corporations that manufacture said media. Once production of a media is halted, the form of artist expression that depends on that media, dies forever.
Finally, Polaroids existed before I was born and I cannot bear the thought that I might outlive this fantastic medium.
That is simply not fair.
griff-polaroid-01
Polaroids are real, tangible, immediate. To a small child watching them develop, they are magic.
Polaroids are unmistakable and instantaneously recognizable. "Ah, that's a Polaroid..."
The Greeks has encaustics (pigmented wax), and many artists today still work in encaustic The Romans had fresco, a difficult and unwieldy medium that is still available should someone want to use it. Silverpoint, lithography, drypoint; all still options for visual artists. Sculpture, weaving, furniture, and so on... every craft and art can still be executed in the media that has been available to its artisans for centuries.
Then there is photography. Newton & Windsor goes out of business, painters can always purchase another brand of oil or acrylic. Sculptors will never run out of things to carve, weld together, or otherwise manipulate. Photographers are not so lucky.
The fate of all photographic media - the very tools on which a photographer's means of expression depend - is decided entirely by the corporations that manufacture said media. Once production of a media is halted, the form of artist expression that depends on that media, dies forever.
Finally, Polaroids existed before I was born and I cannot bear the thought that I might outlive this fantastic medium.
That is simply not fair.