Photographer Robert Farber Is Bringing His Work to New Generations

When Robert Farber was growing up, he wanted to be a painter. Photography was not on his mind—he couldn’t relate to his older brother, who took such an interest in cameras.

“I always thought what he was doing was pretty boring—photography in a darkroom,” Farber said. But when his brother got his first Polaroid camera in the late 1950s, he saw firsthand the wonder of instant film.

Today, Farber, 82, is an internationally renowned photographer. With over 50 years of experience, Farber has exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He has published fifteen photo art books, one of which, “By The Sea,” was brought into the publishing company Doubleday by then-editor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Farber has also seen success in the commercial photography world, shooting some of the first recognized supermodels and for clients such as Bloomingdale's. To be sure, Farber’s career has been a long, highly regarded journey, extending to even directing for film and TV.

Much of his love for photography began with Polaroid’s SX-70 camera, which Farber experimented with to create images that had a painterly aspect. These dream-like, romantic images established Farber’s early acclaim in the photography world.

Now, Farber is bringing these iconic vintage Polaroids to the public in the form of fine art posters available on the new RDO Editions. The prints, which are part of one of several collectible series available, feature the same quality, including minor imperfections, as the originals.

A limited number of museum-scale fine art prints of Farber’s work are also available through the platform, which the photographer said he hopes will make his work more accessible to those who have been priced out.

“Because it’s been in the galleries and as the prices increased, it limited how many people could afford it,” Farber said. “I wanted to make it reachable to a younger, new generation of collectors.”

Straus News spoke with Farber on what it was like starting his career in New York and how Polaroids shaped his work.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Why weren’t you drawn to photography at first?

I liked the idea of what it was. Technically, it was amazing. But I wasn’t drawn into it because I didn’t associate it as an art at the time.

Q: That sounds really different from how photography is viewed now.

Oh, it was so much different. I used to go to the Greenwich Village Show in the Washington Square area. They had an outdoor art show that had been on for years. Around 1970, I put my photos up in frames, and I entered in graphics because they didn’t have a photography category.

And this woman comes up to me, introducing herself, and she said, “Are these paintings or are they photographs?” And I said, “No, they’re photographs.” She said, “I’m the director of this show, and I’m sorry, but we don’t allow photography. So you’ll have to leave.” And she stood there while I packed up. They didn’t recognize photography. So that’s the kind of thing I dealt with early on.

Plus, when I started getting into showing my work, there were really no galleries that showed photography. There might have been one here or there. So it’s always been that kind of battle.

Q: When would you say that the attitude on photography as an art really changed?

It’s evolved gradually. Ansel Adams made more of the general public aware of it when he was on the cover of Time magazine.

Then of course, when the digital age started, everybody became a photographer. All of a sudden, the digital age made photography more of the classic art of the visual arts and of image-making. And it made if you shot with film, it was more of the fine art credibility as opposed to shooting digitally.

If you see a beautiful picture of a sunset and a moon and silhouette, you would look at it and say, “Wow, that’s amazing! But wait a minute—that’s a photoshopped image. Anybody can do that if they have Photoshop.” So people start appreciating images that haven’t been manipulated. Now with AI, it’s like you don’t even need a camera. But it’s the new technology that makes the old technology more appreciated as an art form.

Q: What role did New York play positively in the trajectory of your career?

All the publishers and everything were in New York. It was easier access. Now, of course, it doesn’t matter. You could live anywhere you want, but it’s always good to be in the heart of it. New York was always such a big art scene and the center of everything art. Of course, there’s Paris and all these other cities that are also, but New York has always been great. It gave you access to everybody. If anything was important—a publishing house or galleries—they had a presence in New York. And of course the energy of it and so forth.

Q: Why are you choosing to highlight your SX-70 work specifically now?

It’s always been important to me, and I have a few hundred really great images that I love. What I’ve been shooting has evolved into a little more value to a collector because of the history or time I put behind it. And so all of this creates more of a historic story and gives it more value and appreciation, and Polaroid adds one other level to it. It’s something that’s very creatively satisfying to me, and it really helped define my style in my work.

Q: Nude photography was a very significant part of your early career. How did you choose the specific nude photography images for your SX-70 series?

I have a lot more to release—there’s a good number of them. But these are amongst my favorites because of the graphics of the light, what it created, and the fact that it doesn’t matter if it’s a Polaroid or not, if the images are strong.

Q: What’s on the horizon for you?

We’re planning new exhibitions in different countries in galleries and museums. There are new things with the “Deterioration” series, new publications that are coming out.

I always keep myself going. It’s not the kind of business that you retire from. It keeps going and keeps me inspired.