Extras on the set of the Watchmen

(via Pop Photo) There has always been a thin line between film and still photography for Hollywood phenom Zack Snyder. Director of last year's hugely popular Greco-Persian war story 300, Snyder has been taking pictures for most of his life -- inspired by the example of his mother, an artist/photographer who also planted the film seed by giving her son an 8mm movie camera when he was ten. "When I got out of college I started working as a director-cameraman for commercials," says the photographer, a graduate of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design. "I was using a Polaroid 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 pack-film camera as a way of checking exposure and previewing lighting, so I carried it with me wherever I went."

Snyder went many places, spanning the globe to make music videos and Clio-winning commercials for clients such as Jeep, Budweiser, and Titleist, and shooting Polaroids as he traveled. Why Polaroids? "I look at a photograph as something like a sand castle," he explains. "I like that it's a one-off." Snyder shoots Polaroid Type 55 black-and-white Positive/Negative film, as do many fine-art and documentary photographers, but unlike those photographers bravely throws his negative away.