Analog Forever Magazine is pleased to showcase 30 images in this month’s online exhibition, entitled “Instant Image,” curated by Debra Klomp Ching, co-owner of the Klompching Gallery, New York!

The curator writes:

Way before the immediacy of image making via cell 'phones and digital imaging, there was the Polaroid camera and film—introduced to the world in the 1940s by Edward Land. Polaroid was, without a doubt, a significant technological breakthrough in the history of photography. It brought instant gratification to the masses and sparked the imagination of the general populace.

Importantly, it was and remains, an inspirational tool of creative expression for swaths of artists. The Polaroid is a methodology of making photographs that is energetic, playful, serendipitous and experimental. The medium's quirkiness also contributes, in no small way, to more serious questions of the purpose and meaning of photography itself.

For this online exhibition, I was looking for artworks that imaginatively utilize the Polaroid medium, especially those images that expand the lexicon of the Polaroid, and those images that fully engage with the nature of the medium itself.

The 274 images submitted for this online exhibition certainly haven’t disappointed. I’ve selected 30 photographs that represent a wide range of approaches. Some celebrate and exploit the inherent attributes of the medium—color, light, saturation—as spontaneous moments in time, memorialized. Others seem to go against the grain of ‘instant’. In these examples we see the labor of the hand; cutting, dissecting, collaging, manipulating, pairing, gridding. ‘Instant’ disappears, time is slowed down, paused. The original instant image becomes the backdrop of something much more and less straightforward. I love this!

~ Debra Klomp Ching

GALLERY 

About the Curator

Debra Klomp Ching is the co-owner of the Klompching Gallery, New York—specializing in the exhibition and sale of contemporary fine art photographs. She is also a freelance consultant working with collectors and photographers, an educator with 25+ years experience in formal programs of study, a regular judge of photography awards, and a respected reviewer at select portfolio review events. In 2020 she launched her now sought-after online training webinars, focusing on the creative and business side of making/exhibiting/selling fine art photographs. She is the co-founder of the Fresh Annual Photography Exhibition and the Rhonda Wilson Award.

 Connect with Debra Klomp Ching at the Gallery’s Website and Instagram!