The Camera Does the Rest
How Polaroid Changed Photography
Publication supported by the Neil Harris Endowment Fund
- Contents
- Review Quotes

List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Just a Toy
2. Intimate, One of a Kind
3. Polaroid and Digital
4. Polaroid Attractions
5. Polaroid Values
6. Just for Snapshots?
Conclusion
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
"The Camera Does the Rest has a richness of detail and language. Buse turns to myriad unconventional but vivid sources in his effort to resurrect just what it felt like to make, pose for, and view Polaroid images. This experience of instant photography is his true focus, and he addresses it from multiple, new, persuasive perspectives. In so doing, he makes the magic of the Polaroid moment vivid for those readers for whom that era is now a faint memory and for those readers too young to have experienced it. To my knowledge, the book has no peers in evoking the lost moments of Polaroid photography. While this alone makes it a mighty contribution to the study of visual culture, I would suggest that, in addition, the archeological approach Buse takes to his topic serves as an excellent model for scholars seeking in its archaeological approach, how to recuperate the novelty experienced when now familiar technologies were once new."
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