Polaroid studies and a sound collaboration
For a Fleeting Moment is the first book by Swiss photographer Simone Kappeler devoted exclusively to her Polaroid work, made between 2011 and 2023. The images move between the delicate and the dreamlike, the strange and the distant, drawn from a range of cameras and film stocks that included infrared, disposable, and instant formats.
The book developed through a collaboration with Tokyo-based musician Tomotsugu Nakamura, whose compositions combine acoustic fragments, electronics, and field recordings into minimalist soundscapes. A download code for his accompanying music on Bandcamp is included with each copy, placing the photographs in dialogue with sound rather than presenting them in isolation.
Published by the French label IIKKI, the book appeared as a one-shot companion to Té De Flores Silvestres (IIKKI 025), both titles exploring the possibilities of Polaroid photography within the publisher's project-based approach. This hardcover edition was produced as a single print run of 700 hand-numbered and hand-stamped copies, with no reprints planned.
Kappeler, born in 1952 in Frauenfeld, studied photography at the Zurich University of the Arts after earlier studies in German literature and art history. Her earlier monograph, Seile. Fluss. Nacht. Fotografien 1964–2011, was published by Hatje Cantz. Nakamura's music has previously been released by Kaico, Audiobulb Records, and LAAPS.
