Polaroid Grey Label and Lady Gaga at CES

I wrote about Gaga's appointment as creative director back in May, and it looks like she lived up to her title, not just as a celebrity spokesperson, but as a legit part of the creative team. Gaga and Polaroid debuted 3 new products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this past week.

GL 20: Camera Sunglasses

Gaga got the idea for this initially on her Fame Ball tour, where she made glasses out of iPod screens for her set on stage. Now her idea has become functional. These glasses take photo and video, and it registers them into a USB that is the earpiece of the sunglasses. The earpiece (USB) comes out and can be connected to comp or you can use the bluetooth capability to connect it to your devices.

This is rather innovative in the way that it is bridging together fashion and technology. Gaga calls the product 'innovative and also cultural'. I guess we will have to wait and see if the glasses take on cultural iconography.

GL 10: Mobile Printer

When asked what the camera of the future was (presumably by her Polaroid creative consorts), Gaga held up her cell phone. I guess this ticked them off a bit seeing as how their brand is built on a camera which she is suggesting now be replaced by a phone no less. But she has a point. How many of us actually carry around digital cameras (even to special events)? Most of us rely heavily on our camera phones, which take pretty good photos these days as evidenced by the number of mobile uploads on facebook and the twitpic overflow.

So the idea is to integrate the cell phone camera into the polaroid family, and it seems they have found a way to do so. This could possess even more utility when you think about how many times we have actually printed our digital content. I'd venture to say, not often, because it's just too much of a hassle in most cases.

All you have to do is set up the bluetooth on your phone to connect to the printer. The printer produces 3 x 4 prints, and you have the option of the polaroid trade dress or full bleed.

Unfortunately, the printer is NOT compatible with the iPhone, but it does work with all phones with bluetooth capability.

GL 30: New Polaroid Camera

Last but definitely not least, they unvelied THE camera. Gaga described it as sexy, sleek, and hearty. It takes regular instant polaroids, and has a zink printer (zero ink) which is in the actual camera and the printer and makes this fantastically eco-friendly. Each cartridge holds 10 photos, and the photos register both digitally and as a regular polaroid. Pretty freaking awesome, and should be out by Christmas.

***In the future, they are working on a forward camera that is also digital and will link to all social media outlets, yikes.

Instant Gratification: Polaroid edition

Polaroid is making a comeback.

That's right. Don't believe me? Check out who they just named as their new Creative Director...

If their website is any indication, they are definitely riding on the tech wave, and doing a pretty kick ass job of it.

Polaroid says,

The collaboration will deliver new products that mix the best of “instant” with digital era multi-media. Lady Gaga has a personal connection to the Polaroid experience that she wants to share with the world through the introduction of products that will appeal to a new generation –building on the Polaroid movement into the future.

Gaga looks so Grace Kelley-esque in the bottom right polaroid

If I remember correctly, Polaroid ended instant film in 2008, and hipsters everywhere were rushing to Wal-Mart (who I think was the only retailer carrying the film) to buy out all the stock. Urban Outfitters, being the representative for hipsters everywhere, announced in late 2008 that they would sell the remaining 700 sets of instant film across the US and UK. Well, never fear hipsters, it may have been a tough year without your film, but Polaroid has come back with a vengeance.

It seems that they have realized that they need to get back to the core of their brand. Polaroid was at one point a noun. You would say, check out this Polaroid, instead of 'photo' or 'picture'. I think they may have figured out a way to get back. Enlisting Lady Gaga (recently named Time's most influential person) was not a bad idea.

Only time well tell if this realization comes too little too late, or if there is still a viable market out there for instant. I am putting my money on my feeling that there are enough people out there too keep the brand relevant. The new Polaroid 300 I must admit looks pretty cool, and it even comes in 3 colors!

Steven Klein and Postphotography

Sonesson poses the question, "But is there really a world after photography?"

Many of today's emerging photographers have offered a response to this question, and Sonesson offers his own explanation as well:

"The postphotographic world can only exist in the same sense in which we have long lived in a world after painting: a world in which the meaning of painting has been modified by the advent of photography. But now the meaning of photography and painting alike are in the process of being thoroughly changed by the emergence of computer-pictures....But the computer may also be an instrument of creation: it is not only one of several possible means for mechanical reproduction, but it is also a means for digital production. And this is where we enter the domain of postphotography."

Enter Steven Klein:

On his website, he offers a response to the notion of these categories that can not be interpreted in isolation, and why there is a necessity to define them based on their predecessors:

"There is a desire to link photography with painting. My background is painting and I feel there is no connection between the two. It is as if the camera is linked to a sin, producing a bastard art form that we feel we must link to the past in order to give it credentials. I don't want those credentials. I have no need to apologize for photography."

Many of you may be familiar with his work in fashion photography, particularly in W magazine (which is where I first became acquainted with his work). I found an interesting article on his website that I thought captured the discussion quite nicely:

"For some time now photography has existed in an expanded field that includes fashion, advertising, music, cinema and virtually every other aspect of the culture we live and breath every day. And while there are those who denounce this as a contamination of its ability to report accurately on the world we live in, there are others for whom this very impurity is a saving aesthetic grace. Steven Klein might be one such photographer and X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS, his collaboration with Madonna, is just such a cross-fertilization of talent, medium and genre."

In my opinion, like every art form, and not even limited to art but life in general, things naturally evolve and change, and those who take advantage of this in the appropriate ways and contexts can benefit immensely. I thought Steven Klein was one photographer who was a great example of an artist who is delving into evolving techniques in his art and is not afraid to blend ideas and see what works. With that I will leave you with one last quote that illustrates his involvement with this:

"To this end many of the still images of X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS have been animated with CGI, just as the moving images are often edited in such a way that they appear to be composed of sequenced stills. In doing so he has created a strange hybrid that is neither one nor the other yet draws on both."

Photographical Context: Staged vs. Organic?

Cartier-Bresson’s ideas on photography are fascinating, and I found them very helpful in considering the work of some of the most notable contemporary photographers on the scene today (which depending on the context can be staged or not).

“Manufactured’ or staged photography does not concern me. And if I make a judgment, it can only be on a psychological or sociological level. There are those who take photographs arranged beforehand and those who go out to discover the image and seize it. For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which—in visual terms—questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder….It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.”

Would he consider Marla Rutherford’s work staged?

Q: How do you decide on an idea or setting for the portrait?

A: It depends what kind of subject matter I am photographing. Usually I chose the location first, then wrap the whole concept around it. With my latex and fetish work and my fine art work, generally I go for a desert kind of Blue Velvet David Lynch atmosphere—very surreal. The type of light that I use is already pretty strange, so I look for a location that fits that type of lighting, like bizarre rooms or a more Planet of the Apes type location where it's minimalist and looks like a desert or another planet.

or someone like... David LaChapelle

Initially distinguished by his campy fixation with white-trash culture, LaChapelle is also known for his groundbreaking use of computer manipulation and futuristic fashion shoots and for placing hollywood celebrities. His signature photography has become synonymous with wildly beautiful colorful sets, unexpected positioning of models and celebrities, all shot with subtle or overt humor. More than static portraits, his photos often appear as a still from a motion picture, with layers of plots ready to play out before our eyes.

In connecting LaChapelle to the hybrid nature of contemporary art, he is one photographer who has segued into other areas, starting with directing music videos, and onto films.

What about artists like Richard Prince, who make paintings to look like photographs?

I guess my point is that in today's world, it's all about context. Artists are aware of this as they are creating and disseminating images to the public, whether that is intended for the fine art world or for the masses.

Breaking the Code

Photographers and artists have gone outside the mark so to speak to try to do other things. If you were pursuing photography as a profession, you would probably be trying to develop your own style, or trademark or vision. In the contemporary photography scene, it seems as though every artist has their own aesthetic that they have created, because essentially that is what their art requires. Walter Benjamin explains that “Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work.”

Juergen Teller

"In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance. It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty. But as man withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value."

Peggy Sirota

Guess who

Peggy Sirota plays with the element of spectacle (especially with regard to celebrtity) in her project that she compiled entitled 'Guess Who'. In this book she photographs celebrities in the most absurd of fashions and completely re-contextualizes the image to leave you 'guessing'. She stated that most celebrities were eager to participate, but on occasion there were ones who pulled out when the scenario of their particular photograph was revealed to them. Creative differences perhaps? "I knew that it would be a book, but I didn't know that it would be respected as a fine art project until I got accepted by people that I very much respected. It just sort of happened."

Fine Art?

I thought it was really interesting looking at the emergence of photography as a viable part of the art market, and its relative infancy as a category of fine art. It was fascinating to hear Marla Rutherford's take on this particular topic and how she saw her own work. At the opening night of her exhibit at Irvine Contemporary, someone had asked her whether or not she considered her work to be 'fine art', to which she gave an interesting response. She said that she did consider her work to be in that category, and especially what she has done in the past with the fetish girls where she basically immersed herself in their world, and most recently with the character project where she had very specific ideas and conditions for which how she wanted it to turn out.

Marla's work reminds me a little of David LaChapelle's in that she likes to play around with contexts and the elements. I feel like LaChapelle is sort of known for his surrealist style in that regard. Would his work be considered fine art?

Well, he did have a retrospective in Paris (ran in 2009 I believe), which I would think contributes to his work being afforded that category. His style is so distinctive, and you can see some of his recent work really harping on a lot of our current issues. When you see a LaChapelle, you are definitely going to look twice, or a dozen times.