For Roversi, the studio is “like an empty stage, a space waiting to be filled, a time yet to be invented, where neither seasons, nor days, nor hours exist.” He is clearly caught up in the romance of photography, from the surprise and discovery of its formative years to the most challenging experiments of his fellow-artists, and his work has a terrific sense both of the moment and the days, years, and decades that led up to it. He pushes the Polaroid process to make the pictures that he can only imagine until they explode into life in his darkroom. “Every step forward, every evolution of my work, was the result of an accident,” Roversi told Lécallier. Cameron, Blumenfeld, and Penn are hovering nearby, kibbitzing, gossiping, wondering how it will all come out. Nothing is certain, which makes the creation of a great photograph all the more extraordinary.

These photographs are drawn from “Paolo Roversi.”