{"id":6900,"date":"2022-10-22T12:56:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T12:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=6900"},"modified":"2023-06-28T14:17:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T14:17:04","slug":"thoughts-on-photography-walker-evans-polaroids","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=6900","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Photography: Walker Evans&#8217;s Polaroids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=6904\">Return to Theme Table of Contents<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/\">Return to VJIC Table of Contents<\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/731841704?h=a8073af295\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>Theme editor:<br \/>\nBruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture at University at Buffalo. Some of his books are Places: Things heard, things seen (BlazeVox, 2019) Inside the Wire: Photographs from Texas and Arkansas Prisons (Texas, 2013), Being There: Bruce Jackson Photographs 1962-2012 (Burchfield Penney Art Center, 2013) and <\/em><i>Ways of the Hand: A Photographer\u2019s Memoir<\/i>\u00a0(SUNY Press 2022)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Walker Evans Polaroids<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7170\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7170\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-7170\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449-150x101.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449-150x101.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449-300x203.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449-1024x691.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449-768x518.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/walker_evans_letreror_cartel_circo-1871095449.jpeg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7170\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walker Evens. FSA<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I had a chance encounter with the photographer Walker Evans in Austin, Texas, in 1974. Evans was there for the opening of an exhibit of his 1930s Farm Security Administration photographs at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center; I was there delivering mounted prints of photographs I had done over the past few years at Cummins prison farm in Arkansas for an exhibit at the University\u2019s Texas Union.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7144\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.37.05-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"177\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.37.05-PM.png 177w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.37.05-PM-101x150.png 101w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 177px) 100vw, 177px\" \/>Evans was staying with his former Yale student, William Stott (author of <em>Documentary Expression and Thirties America<\/em>, New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), who had organized the exhibit. My wife Diane Christian and I were staying with two University of Texas friends: folklorist Roger Abrahams and anthropologist Barbara Babcock. Roger told us about the Evans exhibit, which was to open that night, and said, \u201cWould you like to meet him?\u201d I could barely restrain my delight. Evans was, and remains, one of my photographic masters. When I was in my early teens, I visited New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art almost every week; the documentary photograph room was one of my regular stops. The book Evans did with James Agee, <em>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men <\/em>(1940), would be among the top two entries of my list of greatest American prose works of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century (the other is William Faulkner\u2019s <em>Absalom, Absalom!<\/em>, 1936).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7171\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7171\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7171\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-300x232.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-300x232.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-1024x790.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-150x116.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-768x593.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633-1536x1186.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-2110947633.jpeg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7171\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walker Evens FSA<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Roger called Bill Stott, and shortly thereafter, Diane, our twelve-year-old son Michael, Roger, and Roger\u2019s son Rod, were at Bill\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7143\" style=\"width: 255px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7143\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7143\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-245x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"245\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-245x300.jpg 245w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-836x1024.jpg 836w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-123x150.jpg 123w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-768x940.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001-1254x1536.jpg 1254w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Walker-Evans-3-24001.jpg 1470w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7143\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polaroid of Walker Evans taken with his SX-70<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Walker was then particularly excited about his Polaroid SX-70, which he\u2019d gotten a year earlier. The Polaroid Corporation, in an attempt to make the camera respectable, had picked a small number of artists and given them cameras and all the film packs they could use (some of the others were Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, and Helmut Newton). He had his SX-70 in a belt holster. He took it out and showed it to me. He took pictures of Diane, Michael and me, some of which he kept, some of which he gave us.<\/p>\n<p>(Polaroid\u2019s gift wasn\u2019t the only reason or even the prime reason he was using the SX70. Bill Stott wrote me recently that, \u201cWalker told me that he didn\u2019t have the energy to take photos with the cameras he\u2019d used earlier. I had the impression he was working only with the camera Polaroid gave him.\u201d Great artists adapt to the to their own capabilities and the tools at hand: think late Monet, Matisse and Chuck Close.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTry it,\u201d he said. I took pictures of him. Two Polaroids from that day are in my kitchen now: one he took of Michael and one I took of him.<\/p>\n<p>In that conversation, he said something I\u2019ve often quoted since: \u201cPeople ask me what camera I used. It\u2019s not the camera. Its\u2014.\u201d He tapped his temple with his index finger: it\u2019s the eye and the brain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\"><em>\u201cPeople ask me what camera I used. It\u2019s not<br \/>\nthe camera. Its\u2014.\u201d He tapped his temple with<br \/>\nhis index finger: it\u2019s the eye and the brain.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, yes and no. Different cameras and lenses \u201csee\u201d differently. It was always Walker Evans taking Walker Evans photos, but the photos he took with his 8&#215;10\u201d and smaller view cameras, his Rolleflexes, his Leica, and his SX-70 differed from one another. It was his brain and eye determining the camera settings and when the shutter was fired, but those various cameras performed and functioned as differently as a flat and a Phillips head screwdriver. Cameras were the tools of his craft; he decided which tool he would use for which purpose; each of them had its own visual voice.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7139\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7139\" class=\"wp-image-7139 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-1024x663.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-150x97.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-768x497.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy-1536x994.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/BJ-and-Walker-Evans-Austin-1974-copy.jpg 1887w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7139\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo \u00a9 Diane Christian, Bruce Jackson and Walker Evans<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Evans asked why I was in Austin and I told him about the Texas Union exhibit. He asked if he could see the prints before I dropped them off. We made a date to meet the next afternoon. Our group went back to Roger\u2019s and Barbara\u2019s house. A few hours later, Diane, Roger, Barbara and I went back to Stott\u2019s house to join them for the drive to the Harry Ransom Center for the opening of the exhibit.<\/p>\n<p>Evans was delighted with the mounted and framed FSA photos. He apparently hadn\u2019t seen them in some time. \u201cBut why does this place have these prints and I don\u2019t?\u201d he asked Bill Stott.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause you sold them,\u201d Bill said. Evans harrumphed. A few minutes later, I saw him taking Polaroid photos of the installation.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t have a camera with me. It had been a conscious choice: I wasn\u2019t going to go to a photo exhibition opening with Walker Evans being the guy taking pictures. But Bill Stott had a Nikon hanging around his neck. I rushed over to where he was talking to someone and said something like, \u201cBill: come over here. It will be the metaphotograph of metaphotographs: Walker is taking Polaroids of his own FSA prints!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stott looked at me with annoyance. \u201cIn a minute, in a minute. I\u2019m <em>talking <\/em>to someone.\u201d By the time he\u2019d finished talking to that someone, Evans had reholstered his SX-70. The moment was gone. (Not having my own camera with me has been an error I have not repeated since. And now, in the smartphone era, nearly everyone has a camera at hand all the time.)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7137\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7137\" class=\"wp-image-7137 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-1024x698.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-150x102.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-768x523.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-1536x1047.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20040409-d21.12-bruce-walker-evans-ed-2048x1395.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7137\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo \u00a9 Diane Christian, Bruce Jackson and Walker Evans<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The following day, Diane and I went back to Stott\u2019s house. Evans went through my photos one by one, saying nothing. I can remember no exam at which I was so nervous. There was one he said he <em>had<\/em> to have. I said I\u2019d send him a print. He said that photographers always promise to send prints but never did. I said this one was part of the exhibit. He said that if I gave him this one, he\u2019d send me one in exchange. How could I say no? I gave him the mounted print.<\/p>\n<p>No print ever came. We exchanged a few letters, but no print. William Ferris, who had known Evans at Yale, later told me Evans did that all the time. He died with a lot of other people\u2019s prints in his house.<\/p>\n<p>In 1998, twenty-four years later, I was doing some research in the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s collection of Walker Evans materials. I was then curating a University at Buffalo exhibit of Evan\u2019s FSA work. One of the Met\u2019s photo curators, Jeff Rosenheim, came to the table where I was working. He was holding a large matted print.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s maybe something you can help us with. This was in Walker\u2019s collection. It\u2019s different from anything he did. We can\u2019t figure out the provenance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a picture I gave him,\u201d I said. I told him the Austin story.<\/p>\n<p>II<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7141\" style=\"width: 249px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7141\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7141\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Evvans-Polaroid-book-cover1-239x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"239\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Evvans-Polaroid-book-cover1-239x300.jpg 239w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Evvans-Polaroid-book-cover1-120x150.jpg 120w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Evvans-Polaroid-book-cover1.jpg 378w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7141\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cover: Walker Evans Polaroid Book<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Four years later, Jeff\u2019s book, <em>Walker Evans: Polaroids<\/em> (Scalo Zurich, in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002), was published. It is the only published collection thus far of the final phase of Evans\u2019s long and influential career.<\/p>\n<p>I think it misses the point of those pictures in two important regards, one having to do with the character or voice of Polaroids, the other with their place in Evans\u2019s body of work.<\/p>\n<p>Many of his Polaroids are like his old photos, but with two differences: they\u2019re in color and they lack visual nuance. He did color for some of his <em>Fortune <\/em>assignments, but, until the SX-70, he never much liked it. SX-70 images simply do not have the dynamic range of negative film: the dark areas on buildings in his earlier photos had a long scale going from bright to dark; these have the tonal range of mud.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7151\" style=\"width: 406px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7151\" class=\" wp-image-7151\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.31.46-PM-300x168.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"396\" height=\"222\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.31.46-PM-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.31.46-PM-150x84.png 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.31.46-PM.png 411w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7151\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google search October 2022<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Jeff wrote in his introduction that there were more than three thousand Evans Polaroids. For his book, he opted for the graphic pictures\u2014road lane paint, signs\u2014and buildings. Evans always loved signs and artifacts. The walls of his home were covered with signs he stole from highways and barns. In 1931, Evans made a photograph of a large picture of the window of a wood house; inside the window was a large photo of Herbert Hoover. One of the Polaroids is very much like it: a decaying house with, inside the window, an upside down sign with a large painted hand and the word \u201cPalmist\u201d (He took that photo on a 1973 visit with artist William Christenberry to Hale County, Alabama, where he and Agee had done their work for <em>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. <\/em>Christenberry subsequently got the sign and put it on his own wall. \u201cI sent Walker a photo of it there,\u201d Bill told me. \u201cI knew he\u2019d have a fit.\u201d)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7149\" style=\"width: 338px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7149\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7149\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.24.27-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"328\" height=\"436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.24.27-PM.png 328w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.24.27-PM-226x300.png 226w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.24.27-PM-113x150.png 113w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 328px) 100vw, 328px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7149\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google search, October 2022<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Rosenheim\u2019s book has 121 images. Nineteen of them are road lane markers: white dashes and arrows painted on pavement. There are twenty-two buildings, none with any detail in the shadow areas. Evans\u2019s prints made from negative film prints are full of shadow area detail.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s to conclude: that Evans had a new aesthetic, one that tossed aside the tonal precision for which he was so well known, and that he\u2019d spent a lifetime perfecting, or that he had made a tradeoff, as had everyone else, to Polaroid\u2019s limited tonal range?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7152\" style=\"width: 267px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7152\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7152\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.23.48-PM-257x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"257\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.23.48-PM-257x300.png 257w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.23.48-PM-129x150.png 129w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-1.23.48-PM.png 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 257px) 100vw, 257px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7152\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walker Evans Polaroid<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What was entirely new in Evans\u2019s Polaroids are the color portraits of <em>people<\/em> he was hanging out with. In his entire career, he\u2019d done remarkably few hanging-out photos. In 1929 and 1930, he took photos of Ben Shahn, Hart Crane and Lincoln Kirsten; the images are almost all very formal, very posed. There are hardly any photos by him of family, cronies, lovers, children, drinking-pals. He famously spent two weeks drinking with Ernest Hemingway after finishing his shooting assignment in Cuba for Carlton Beals\u2019s <em>The Crime of Cuba<\/em> (1933); he took not a single photograph during that encounter.<\/p>\n<p>He was no more likely to take hanging out snapshots than a surgeon to slice his steak with a scalpel. In his professional photographer days, the camera was an instrument, one to be used precisely and specifically. With film, Evans stalked the light; with the SX-70, he just snapped away. Had our 1974 Austin encounter occurred twenty years earlier, there would be Diane\u2019s and my 35mm photos of him; there would have been none by him of us.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7161\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7161\" class=\"wp-image-7161 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-300x180.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-300x180.png 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-1024x614.png 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-150x90.png 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-768x460.png 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM-1536x920.png 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.27.05-PM.png 1652w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7161\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walker Evens Polaroids, Web image: https:\/\/www.anatomyfilms.com\/walker-evans-polaroids\/<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Rosenheim\u2019s book includes only <em>five<\/em> casual portraits, the kind of photograph the camera was designed to make. I suspect that Rosenheim, in editing that book, saw the Polaroids in terms of Evans\u2019s past rather than his present. With the Polaroid, Evans made images of the things he\u2019d made images of for decades; that\u2019s what he knew how to do. But what excited him were people in the room. I saw that happen. He may have made more photos of objects than people with the SX-70, but it was the people photos that lit him up and that were new. You can find many of them on the Web.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Walker Evans Polaroids online:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anatomyfilms.com\/walker-evans-polaroids\/\">https:\/\/www.anatomyfilms.com\/walker-evans-polaroids\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/americansuburbx.com\/2011\/09\/walker-evans-polaroids.html\">https:\/\/americansuburbx.com\/2011\/09\/walker-evans-polaroids.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Yale University Art Gallery: 2,133 images:<br \/>\nhttps:\/\/artgallery.yale.edu\/overall-search\/walker%20evans%20polaroids<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/artgallery.yale.edu\/overall-search\/walker%20evans%20polaroid\">https:\/\/artgallery.yale.edu\/overall-search\/walker%20evans%20polaroid<\/a><\/p>\n<p>All of that goes to the matter of image selection in <em>Walker Evans: Polaroids<\/em>. More serious is the mutilation of every image in the book but one.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7159\" style=\"width: 311px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7159\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7159\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.16.53-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"301\" height=\"254\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.16.53-PM.png 301w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-2.16.53-PM-150x127.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 301px) 100vw, 301px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7159\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google search Polaroid SX 70 October 2022<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Polaroid image is a 3.135\u201d square. It comes out of the camera embedded in a 3.483\u201d x 4.233\u201d paper frame. In exchange for camera and film speed (the maximum shutter speed was 1\/175; the film had an exposure index of 180: you couldn\u2019t shoot things in motion with it; it wasn\u2019t made for that) and tonal range, the Polaroid put a real picture in your hand in sixty seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Polaroid photos aren\u2019t just documents of a moment, as are almost all other photographs. They are also <em>things<\/em>, specific objects, with a trajectory in time. Some hold up well. Some show their age with cracks, discolorations, a stain or a color shift toward green. They enter the world embedded in that paper frame. That frame is not ancillary to the picture; it is <em>part<\/em> of it. That frame tells us what kind of picture we\u2019re looking at. If you\u2019ve seen Polaroid pictures, you know immediately that they don\u2019t look like pictures made from negatives or transparencies, so you don\u2019t read or judge them by the same standards.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7176\" style=\"width: 237px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7176\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7176\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001-227x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"227\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001-227x300.jpg 227w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001-774x1024.jpg 774w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001-113x150.jpg 113w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001-768x1016.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0001.jpg 871w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 227px) 100vw, 227px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7176\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image from Walker Evans polariods<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There\u2019s something else, something equally important, that sets them apart: most people responded very differently to someone taking a photo with an SX-70 than someone taking a photo with a view camera on a tripod, or a Rolliflex or a Leica. It was very much like the difference now between taking a photo with a smartphone and taking one with a Nikon or Canon or Sony. Most people pay little or no attention to someone making smartphone pictures; the cameras are ubiquitous, so people relax. It shows in the images. I think that\u2019s what Walker Evans was delighting about with his SX-70.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone, back then, knew what a Polaroid was all about, and acted or reacted accordingly. And knew, when they saw that paper frame, how to read the picture they were looking at.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But every image in <em>Walker Evans: Polaroids<\/em>\u2014except the one on the cover\u2014has that paper frame cut off. Each page has what appears to be a very small, very murky, picture of something or someone. You can remind yourself again and again that what you\u2019re looking at is a reproduction of a Polaroid, but that\u2019s not what you\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7178\" style=\"width: 273px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7178\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7178\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007-263x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"263\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007-263x300.jpg 263w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007-899x1024.jpg 899w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007-132x150.jpg 132w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007-768x875.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SCN_0007.jpg 1011w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 263px) 100vw, 263px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7178\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Page from Walker Evans Polaroid book<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By cutting off the frame in which the square picture is embedded, the visible evidence of what kind of photo is being seen is abolished. If the frame is there, a looker understands why the scale from light to dark is far less subtle than with film. If it is there, a looker assumes that the image hasn\u2019t been cropped. If it is there, the viewer is reminded that each image is a specific physical object, one that exists in time. Those artifacts of the medium are no more disturbing than minor grammatical errors in the English of someone with a heavy foreign accent.<\/p>\n<p>The Polaroids were one of the few times in his career that Walker Evans didn\u2019t have someone else between him and his prints: no John Hill, no Jerry Thompson. Not only were the people who printed for him absent, but so was the delay between firing the shutter and having the print in hand. The camera and the Polaroid process did it in a purely mechanical, uncaring, neutral way. He loved that. The subtraction of the frames, the visual context, in <em>Walker Evans: Polaroids<\/em> tosses that away.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/763667298?h=32c1a55ad7\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=6900\/#top\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">&gt;&gt; Top<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Return to Theme Table of Contents Return to VJIC Table of Contents\u00a0 Theme editor: Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture at University at Buffalo. Some of his books are Places: Things heard, things &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=6900\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88910,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6900","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2KsSU-1Ni","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6900"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7592,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6900\/revisions\/7592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}