Controversy Surrounds Celebrity Photographer Jonathan Leder’s NSFW Polaroids
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Leder
With his provocative works often finding their way to gallery walls and the collections of art connoisseurs, photographer Jonathan Leder stands out in today’s contemporary art world. Leder told Paste his goal is to explore the female form, in a more modern way than Egon Schiele and more natural way than Alberto Vargas. He stays away from harsher terminology, such as the word ‘erotica’, to describe his work. One of his bigger projects a few years ago was starting a pornographic magazine, Jaques, but he insists the print magazine aimed for an Americana old-school feel rather than hyper-sexualized format.
Although Leder began his photography career in fashion, he says his career truly began in 2012 when he began experimenting with the works included in his current show, Polaroids. He loves living with his works for five to ten years before showing them in a formal setting. The 120 intimate photos currently on display have rarely been seen in public.
Leder’s process is less conventional than most photographers and he confides that he works more slowly than others. The act of shooting, that technical process of photographing is not what drives him. Instead Leder told Paste he is chasing an end result, content on focusing on what the photo itself will create. Leder became a fan of (basically extinct) polaroid film when he first moved upstate where a photo lab wasn’t just a subway ride away. He’s drawn to the fact that there are finite number of photos possible and enjoys the instant gratification of seeing the results of each shoot right away.