Mike Brodie
- For the former professional boxer, see Michael Brodie
- For the rugby league footballer for the Treaty City Titans, see Michael "Mike" Brodie
Mike Brodie (born in 1985), best known by his pseudonym ""Polaroid Kidd"" is a self-trained American photographer from Pensacola, Florida.
In 2003 Brodie left home at 18 to travel the rails across America. A friend gave him a camera and he found himself spending three years photographing the friends and companions he encountered with the Polaroid SX-70. Polaroid discontinued SX-70 film, so now he shoots on 35mm on a Nikon F3.
His photographs have been featured in exhibits in Milwaukee, at Get This! Gallery[1] in Atlanta and in Los Angeles at M+B Gallery.[2] His work was also selected to appear in the 2006 edition of the Paris International Photo Fair at the Louvre.[3] In November 2007 he collaborated with Swoon and Chris Stain to mount an installation at Gallery LJ Beaubourg in Paris.[4] He also has had collaborative shows with artist Monica Canilao.
His photographs largely depict what he refers to as "travel culture", train-hoppers, vagabonds, squatters and hobos.[5]
Critic Vince Aletti of artsandantiques.net says 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." [6]
Bibliography
- Tones of Dirt and Bone (2006) TBW Books
- A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2012) Twin Palms Publishers