Michael Brodie (born 1985) is an American photographer originally from Mesa, Arizona. He began photographing in 2003 after discovering a Polaroid camera in the backseat of a car, during the final years of Polaroid’s Time-Zero film. Soon after, a series of chance encounters led Brodie to hop freight trains across the United States, embedding himself within a transient community of vagabonds and drifters he would come to document from the inside.
Working under the moniker The Polaroid Kidd, Brodie produced an intimate and defining body of portraits that quickly garnered international recognition. In late 2005, following Polaroid’s discontinuation of SX-70 film, he transitioned to a Nikon 35mm camera and began photographing what would later become A Period of Juvenile Prosperity (2013). It was named Best Exhibition of the Year by Vince Aletti in Artforum and cited as one of the best photo books of the year by The Guardian, The New York Times, The Telegraph, and American Photo. The work is widely regarded as a benchmark in American photography, extending the lineage of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Nan Goldin.
In the closing lines of A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, Brodie wrote, “I don’t want to be famous, but I hope this book is remembered forever.” Now in its sixth printing, the sentiment has proven prescient.
In 2010, Brodie graduated from a Nashville-based trade school as a licensed diesel mechanic, later moving west and building a house in Winnemucca, Nevada. His recent monograph, Failing, chronicles the ensuing decade of upheaval, depicting love and loss, spiritual searching, and the fragile lives of kindred souls moving through America’s roadways.
Brodie’s photographs are held in collections worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Martin Parr Foundation, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Sir Elton John Photography Collection. He lives with his wife and son in Pensacola, Florida.