Behind Photographers.

For the past seven years Tim Mantoani has been archiving images of photographic legends in his series Behind Photographers. He asks these famous artists hold their favorite, or most iconic, image from their own body of work. Mantoani then photographs them in a studio setting with a 20 x 24 Polaroid. A 20 x 24 Polaroid is a mammoth sized instant-film machine that appears to be a trivial, if not archaic, piece of technology. However, there's something about film cameras that provides certain gratification for a photographer--something raw and physical that a simple DSLR cannot achieve. In addition, though the camera may be large, it produces velvety and crisp images. Once his photographs have dried and developed, Mantoani asks his subject matter--the photographers--to write a small, personal story about their art on the bottom of the polaroid. The series, which began as a personal project in 2006, has grown to include more than one hundred photographers. The images have since been collected and bound in to a hardcover book published by Channel Photographics. To see more of Mantoani's Behind Photographers series, or to learn how you can get your hands on the hardcover collection, visit Mantoani's official website here.
(images via likeafieldmouse)