extrait d’une entrevue par The Art Newspaper avec Patti Smith:
The Art Newspaper: Why do you use a Polaroid?
Patti Smith: Because I’m on the road a lot with my band. Having a Polaroid I can take a picture and see it right away, that gives me a sense of accomplishment, I have something in my hand.
Also like Robert [Mapplethorpe] I don’t take 40 pictures, when we did the cover of “Horses” [Smith’s 1975 debut album] he took 12, and one of them was the record cover. But today when I do a photo shoot with somebody they want to take 400 pictures and after 24 I say to them, look, come on, we would have had “Horses” by now! I go out for a walk in a city, say Paris or Beirut, I take ten shots and each one has to have some meaning, I have to really understand the light I want, the moment I want, the image I want, then I can see it, I have it in my hand. It’s like creation, I “see that it is good”, it’s an affirmation.