Polaroids are too often dismissed as being merely "fun time" cameras. While Polaroid cameras are technically easy to use and known for their charming unpredictability, they are most definitely not just toys. Photographers and artists from Walker Evans and Andy Warhol to Chuck Close and Robert Rauschenberg have proven that a thousand times over. If I can put the money where my mouth is for a moment, an Ansel Adams polaroid broke the artists record selling for $772,500 at a Sotheby's auction of The Polaroid Collection, a collection of thousands of artists' Polaroids that were amassed over nearly six decades. Here is just a handful of the magic a few of my favorites have made.
DAVID HOCKNEY
CHUCK CLOSE
WALKER EVANS
MARY ELLEN MARK
ANDY WARHOL
ANSEL ADAMS