Mark Borthwick: Pola Pan

The iconic fashion photographer and pioneering cult hero of the 1990s fashion scene revisits his early work, shot on black-and-white PolaPan Polaroid film, in this exceptional fine art photography book.

Borthwick is regarded as one of the most influential fashion photographers of our time, ranking among the generation of photographers who in the nineties broke through the conventions of fashion photography.

Borthwick digs deep into his archive of early work shot on PolaPan—a 35mm black-and-white instant-developing Polaroid film that was produced only during these years. The young experimental photographer was elliptically charmed by this film, which taught him the fragility of time and unwittingly encouraged him to trust in the virtues of mistakes, shaping his gentle, romantic, and dreamy signature photographic aesthetic.

Featuring his documentation of the streets of Paris and New York in the 1980s and 1990s, including portraits of family and friends; early fashion work featuring iconic models such as Kate Moss, Carolyn Murphy, Kirsten Owen, and Stella Tennant; collaborations with fashion designers such as Maria Cornejo, John Galliano and his muses such as Chloë Sevigny, Kim Gordon, Jane Birkin, Marianne Faithfull, Michael Hutchence, Vanessa Paradis; and his iconic album covers for Sinéad O’Connor.