A living archive of instant portraiture by Phillip Leeds — musicians, artists and icons of culture, shot on the Polaroid Big Shot camera since 2004.
Enter the Archive
A living archive of instant portraiture by Phillip Leeds — musicians, artists and icons of culture, shot on the Polaroid Big Shot camera since 2004.
Enter the ArchiveThe Project
Just as the Polaroids in Andy Warhol's Red Books defined his generation of artists, BIG SHOTS! captures twenty years of music, fashion and street culture — one instant frame at a time.Volume One published by Rizzoli · Volume Two published by Blurring Books · Forewords by Pharrell Williams · The archive is still growing — Volume Three coming 2027
The Archive
The Camera
Produced for barely two years in the early 1970s, the Big Shot does exactly one thing: portraits, at arm's length, with a flash. Andy Warhol swore by it. Phillip never stopped using it.
Total production run. A plastic, fixed-focus camera Polaroid discontinued almost immediately — now kept alive by the people who love it.
The only distance it focuses at. Photographer and subject do the "Big Shot shuffle" toward each other until the split image lines up. Every portrait is that close.
Fires a disposable flash cube on every frame. That hard, honest pop of light is the signature of every BIG SHOTS! portrait.
Original pack film is long discontinued — the camera has been modified to keep shooting, from expired Polaroid and Fuji FP-100C through to Instax Wide today.
Two Volumes
Published by Rizzoli. Rita Ora on the cover, foreword by Pharrell Williams. Over 400 portraits including Justin Timberlake, Virgil Abloh, Naomi Campbell, Jay-Z, Jeff Koons, Lewis Hamilton and Mac Miller.
Get Volume One
Published by Blurring Books. SZA on the cover, foreword again by Pharrell Williams. Over 500 portraits including Megan Thee Stallion, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mark Ronson, George Clinton, Doechii and James Lipton.
Get Volume TwoLive
The Photographer
"I met Phillip way back, in '95 or '96, and he was always the guy who would say, 'Let's take a picture.'"— Pharrell Williams, foreword to Volume One
Born and raised in New York City, Phillip Leeds spent decades inside the worlds of music and fashion — tour managing Pharrell and N.E.R.D., helping build Billionaire Boys Club — with a Big Shot camera always within reach. What began as a shoebox full of photos became two published volumes and an archive of over a thousand unique 1 of 1 instant portraits of the people who shaped modern culture.
Shop
Signed editions, tees, pins and bundles.