I think I've found my favourite image in the Polaroid Book. There's so many pictures in the book it's easy to completely miss some. The photo is by Stephan Erfurt and its called New York Restaurants. It depicts the inside of a New York restaurant whilst looking out of the window at the same time. There is a light from outside beaming through the window plunging everything inside into darkness. All the objects become hidden in the shadows and the people become silhouettes. The air of mystery surrounding the photo combined with the calmness of it all is something that I just love about this picture. Being black and white means it doesn't become over complicated with colours and the fact that everything is in the dark means it takes away all the tiny details of the objects out, there's no fuss and everything becomes simplified down to just their black and white tones. It reminded a lot of those moody black and white photos of 1950's Paris you find in a lot of poster shops.

I've tried looking on the internet for the image but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I can hardly find any information on the artist himself which is annoying. I think he's just not as well recognised or well established as some of the other artists in the book.

Polaroid Book

I finally managed to buy the Polaroid book the other day. I saw it in the Tate Modern shop a while ago but didn't buy it and have only just got round to getting it. It's full of so many different artists with such a variety of different work, it was hard to find just one favourite. There were four artists in particular though that stood out for me.

First there was the artist Ansel Adams. His photos showed natural objects positioned and arranged in a slightly unnatural setting. The one in the book showed a shell standing upright on some rocky sand with a wisp of what could either be cloud or smoke behind it, placed so it looked like the shell was producing it.


Then there was a really tranquil photo by Werner J Hannappel of the tip of a boat pointing out towards the rest of a big lake lined with trees opening out in front of you. I've tried to get a picture of this image up but unfortunately the internet isn't letting me do it.


Barbara Crane's Photos of trees in a forest were surprisingly good as they were such simple images yet they had a distinct quality about them that made them seem that much more special and unique. I especially liked the colour one as the the oranges and golden browns just engulf the picture filling it with bright, rich colours.