Robby Muller: Polaroid

Back by popular demand! Re-printed Edition. Due in October 2018.

Internationally lauded for his often ground-breaking camera work (for directors like Wim Wenders, Lars von Trier and Jim Jarmusch), the Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller (1940-2018) contributed greatly to the success of an entire generation of independent filmmakers, who made ascent in the world of auteur cinema since the early 1970s.

Müller would often take Polaroids in moments in between his work on set, as studies in light and composition. As such, they mainly document his hotel rooms or the abstract patterns in urban landscapes he encountered during his walks through foreign cities.

He would seek out lines in the typical square Polaroid format and find movement in light through the interplay of reflection and shadow. Müller also often photographed complex situations, such as the ‘blue hour’ where artificial and natural light meet.

There is a clear line to be drawn therefore between the Polaroids and the films Müller made, with him here establishing painterly tableaus through the instant medium of Polaroid. These stilled moments and compositions display the working mind and eye of Müller.

Polaroid is a beautiful small-format, two-volume set: one book is themed Exterior, the other is themed Interior. This 2018 reprinted edition also comes with a new booklet, Living The Light: A Visual Essay which was created by Müller himself.

Originally published on the occasion of the exhibition, Master of Light: Robby Müller at EYE, Amsterdam, 4 June – 4 September 2016.