Mike Brodie (born 1985), also known as the "Polaroid Kid" [1] or "Polaroid Kidd", is an American photographer. Since 2003, Brodie has freighthopped across the US, photographing people he encountered, largely train-hoppers, vagabonds, squatters, and hobos. He has published A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013), Tones of Dirt and Bone (2015), and the box of reproduction Polaroids Polaroid Kid (2023).
Michael Christopher Brodie was born on April 5, 1985, in Mesa, Arizona, the son of Frankie and Gary Brodie. His mother worked most of her life as a maid and caregiver, though is currently a cashier at Walgreens,[ citation needed ] while his father is currently serving his 3rd prison sentence at the Florence State Prison, in Arizona.[ citation needed ] In 2000, the Brodie family moved to Pensacola, Florida where Brodie met his first girlfriend who introduced him to the punk rock music scene and the lifestyle therein.
In 2003, while washing dishes at his home, Brodie witnessed a young couple huddled close together on a passing railroad freight car, intrigued by this, Brodie (then age 18) left home, eventually freighthopping across the US from 2004 to 2008. He photographed his experiences including the people he encountered, largely train-hoppers, vagabonds, squatters and hobos. [2] Initially he used a Polaroid SX-70 given to him by a friend. When Polaroid discontinued SX-70 film around 2005/2006 he swapped to a Nikon F3 and 35 mm film.
His first cross-country trip brought him to Oakland, CA where he met Paul Schiek, founder of TBW Books. Schiek helped Brodie produce two bodies of work from this (latter) period: Tones of Dirt and Bone and A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, which have been exhibited in galleries and become books. Although A Period of Juvenile Prosperity was published and exhibited first, the images in Tones of Dirt and Bone were produced earlier, when Brodie used Polaroid film, before he switched to the 35 mm format of A Period of Juvenile Prosperity. "The 35mm format let me shoot more candidly and truly capture real moments, not staged portraits." [3]
A Period of Juvenile Prosperity was included in lists of best photobooks of 2013 by critic Sean O'Hagan in The Guardian , [4] Clinton Cargill in The New York Times , [5] Dazed , [6] Mother Jones [7] and American Photo magazine. [8] Kenneth Baker, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, listed the A Period of Juvenile Prosperity exhibition at Stephen Wirtz Gallery in his top 10 list for 2013. [9] Vince Aletti in Artforum named Brodie's show in New York as the show of the year,[ citation needed ] and has said of Brodie's work: "Even if you're not intrigued by Brodie's ragtag bohemian cohort—a band of outsiders with an unerring sense of post-punk style—the intimate size and warm, slightly faded color of his prints are seductive. His portraits . . . have a tender incisiveness that is rare at any age." [10] Martin Parr and Gerry Badger call the photographs of A Period of Juvenile Prosperity "unashamedly romantic and warm toned". [11]
Photographer Alec Soth, writing in The Telegraph, included A Period of Juvenile Prosperity in his top ten photobooks of 2013:
I really wanted to dislike this book, but I was completely won over by the pictures, design and even Brodie's essay. "I don't want to be famous," he writes, "but I hope this book is remembered for ever." I have a feeling it will be. [12]
Writing in his own blog, Soth also said "Everything about this book is perfect: the size, printing, sequence, cover image, title and essay." [13] Parr and Badger include the book in the third volume of their photobook history, saying that "what makes this book stand out is the quality of the photographs". [11]
Brodie has also collaborated with Swoon, Chris Stain, and Monica Canilao.
In 2009, Brodie attended and graduated from the Nashville Auto-Diesel College, in Nashville, TN, with goals of attaining a career in that field.[ citation needed ]
After A Period of Juvenile Prosperity was released in 2013, Brodie said he was giving up photography. [3] However, in 2021, in an interview with AnOther Magazine, he said he was taking pictures again. Brodie explained "My camera's kind of always been around, there was just a break in my mid to late 20s. I decided I wanted to get into the trades, I didn't want to be an artist by trade. So I went to diesel mechanic school." [14] As of 2017 Brodie is working as a diesel mechanic for the Union Pacific Railroad, along with his wife, who works as a conductor.[ citation needed ]
Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.
Alec Soth is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers" and photographs "loners and dreamers". His work tends to focus on the "off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America" according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth. He is a member of Magnum Photos.
Christian Patterson is an American photographer known for his Sound Affects and Redheaded Peckerwood series which have received solo exhibitions and been published as books. Redheaded Peckerwood was awarded the Rencontres d'Arles Author Book Award in 2012 and Patterson has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Vevey International Photography Award.
Jim Goldberg is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.
Kikuji Kawada is a Japanese photographer. He co-founded the Vivo photographic collective in 1959. Kawada's books include Chizu and The Last Cosmology (1995). He was included in the New Japanese Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1974 and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 2011.
Masahisa Fukase was a Japanese photographer, celebrated for his work depicting his domestic life with his wife Yōko Wanibe and his regular visits to his parents' small-town photo studio in Hokkaido. He is best known for his 1986 book Karasu, which in 2010 was selected by the British Journal of Photography as the best photobook published between 1986 and 2009. Since his death in 2012 there has been a revival of interest in Fukase's photography, with new books and exhibitions appearing that emphasize the breadth and originality of his art.
Todd Hido is an American photographer. He has produced 17 books, had his work exhibited widely and included in various public collections. Hido is currently an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Jacob Aue Sobol is a Danish photographer. He has worked in East Greenland, Guatemala, Tokyo, Bangkok, Copenhagen, United States and Russia. In 2007 Sobol became a nominee at Magnum Photos and a full member in 2012. His work has been published in a number of monographs and many catalogues, and is held in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is awarded annually by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Photographers' Gallery to a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe during the past year.
Gerald David "Gerry" Badger is an English writer and curator of photography, and a photographer.
Media Space is a 642-square-metre (6,910 sq ft) exhibition space at the London Science Museum, developed in association with the National Media Museum.
Will Steacy is an American writer and photographer based in New York City. His work is held in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.
Brad Zellar is an American author and journalist. Zellar's writing often is accompanied by photographs; he has collaborated several times with photographer Alec Soth. The Coen brothers film A Serious Man, nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture, took some inspiration for the visuals based on Zellar's book the Suburban World: The Norling Photos. His book Conductors of the Moving World was named in Time's "Best of 2011: The Photobooks We Loved", and was the recipient of the 2012 Photography for Design Professional Award from D&AD.
Thijs groot Wassink and Ruben Lundgren are two Dutch photographers who work together as WassinkLundgren. Their photography and film projects shift mundane, often unnoticeable, everyday occurrences into visually compelling and gently amusing observations of the world around us.
Carolyn Drake is an American photographer based in Vallejo, California. She works on long term photo-based projects seeking to interrogate dominant historical narratives and imagine alternatives to them. Her work explores community and the interactions within it, as well as the barriers and connections between people, between places and between ways of perceiving. her practice has embraced collaboration, and through this, collage, drawing, sewing, text, and found images have been integrated into her work. She is interested in collapsing the traditional divide between author and subject, the real and the imaginary, challenging entrenched binaries.
Self Publish, Be Happy (SPBH) is an organisation founded by Bruno Ceschel in 2010 that aims to help aspiring photographers to self-publish their own books. It does so through workshops, talks, exhibitions, live events, on/offline projects and publicising of books. It is based on Ridley Road, in Dalston, London, where it keeps a library of some 2000 donated self-published zines and books.
Doug Rickard was an American artist and photographer. He used technologies such as Google Street View and YouTube to find images, which he then photographed on his computer monitor. His photography has been published in books, exhibited in galleries and held in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Rickard was best known for his book A New American Picture (2010). He was founder and publisher of the website on contemporary photography, American Suburb X, and the website These Americans which published some of his collection of found photographs.
Nancy Rexroth is an American photographer noted for her pioneer work utilizing the Diana camera. In 1977, she published Iowa – the first printed monograph of work completed with a plastic camera.
Mike Mandel is an American conceptual artist and photographer. According to his artist profile, his work "questions the meaning of photographic imagery within popular culture and draws from snapshots, advertising, news photographs, and public and corporate archives."
Jason Fulford is an American photographer, publisher and educator, based in Brooklyn, New York City and Scranton, PA.
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