Nothing reminds us how random life really is quite like a Wim Wenders movie. Every time we finish one of his films we are reminded how precious every moment is and how much free will one person has. Instant Stories is a visual diary of a young filmmaker discovering the world, one Polaroid at a time.

Renowned director and photographer Wim Wenders (b. 1945) opens a treasure chest of images from the 1970s and ’80s—portraits of friends and collaborators, fleeting impressions from his travels, and glimpses of cinema itself, from American TV screens to provincial German theaters. His photographs are tangible proof of the randomness of life, the serendipity of encounters, and the quiet poetry of the everyday. Accompanied by Wenders’ reflections, this book is an ode to photography as a way of holding onto time.

As Wenders said in one of his earlier movies Alice in the Cities (1974), “That’s why you keep taking photos, they’re something you can hold on to, more evidence that it was you who saw things.”