There’s something eerily familiar about this old polaroid ad from the 60’s…

If you haven’t already heard, Polaroid Corporation is killing off all of it’s instant film production. It’s demise is likely to be complete as early as 2009. In fact, our local camera shop – West Photo – claims to be completely out of certain types already and the distributor will not take any new orders.

If you’re seriously worried, be sure to check out savepolaroid.com.

Most consumer-fans of polaroid film shouldn’t fret too much as the patent will certainly be licensed to other companies willing to manufacture it. In fact, Fuji already makes a color version of the pack film for certain cameras, and it’s been rumored that they will be taking on more, most likely going after the fringe market of the 600 series and Time-Zero equivalents.

Some of us in the professional market won’t be so lucky. Most large format instant film will probably disappear, along with our ability to proof and check focus when shooting large format film. Believe it or not, there are still clients who demand 4×5 transparencies for reproduction.

What can we expect from artists like Chuck Close, Lucas Samaras, and Mike Slack who have made the medium part of their trademark styles? Even if they are able to hoard the last remaning boxes, the stuff has a shelf life of less than a year. As aptly stated at savepolaroid.com “Best before: It’s too late”

The Vineland Plaza and Vineland entry to the Bazinet Lobby are now complete and open to the public. This entry also reconnects Vineland with the parking garage, a long awaited passage for both visitors and staff.

Typically used to correct distortion in architectural photography, shift lenses can also be used to create a false sense of closeness by mimicking an extremely shallow depth of field. Such a shallow depth of field — or the amount of the image that is in sharp focus — is usually only attainable when viewing a subject from a short distance.

You can hear Vincent speak on his techinique and see examples of his work with shift lenses HERE.

A recent portrait of punk rock pioneer and poet, Richard Hell. Despite his somewhat ominous appearance he was a very nice, easy going guy.

He gave me a piece of Sugarless BubbleYum. (Actual wrapper shown.)

Jem Cohen came to the Walker photo studio the other night and, after some discussion, we decided to shoot his portrait with SX-70 (Time Zero) polaroid film and an old 70’s-era camera–a perfect format to capture an artist who works in, as he describes, “archaic mediums.”

Photo editors are a picky breed. That’s why for a photographer, getting your image on the cover of a magazine is a huge compliment (Or, it was just better than any other available choice). This spring two magazines featured Walker-produced photos for their March 2006 covers. Art In America featured an exhibition view of Huang’s Bat Project IV (2004-2005) shot by Gene Pittman. Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art made a somewhat unusual decision to use an artist portrait on their cover with terrific results. Artist portrait of Huang Yongping by Cameron Wittig.