On Sunday night in Los Angeles, Lucas Michael was tasked with the job of capturing the A list with his Big Shot Polaroid camera for New York Magazine. The results are truly lovely, portraits of celebrities like you've never seen them before – smiling, joking, completely beautiful and utterly candid. We called Michael, an Argentinian based in New York where he works almost exclusively for New York Magazine, to find out why Polaroids are so flattering and to ask how we can learn to take good Polaroids ourselves.

You’re so accustomed to pictures from the Golden Globes but when you see a Polaroid, it just feels slightly different, doesn’t it?
Yes, it’s almost like the anti-red carpet photograph. It’s not about what they’re wearing, it’s about what they’re feeling. And it so happens that they’ve just won an award, or a percentage of them have, so they’re happy.

Why are Polaroids more flattering?
Well, this particular camera is a Big Shot Polaroid, it’s made for portraits. And I’m pretty sure that it was made to make photos more flattering. You shoot with a flash cube and then the camera itself has a diffuser in front of the flash cube so the light is soft. So even though it’s really bright, it’s soft and it softens the shadows. So there are no harsh shadows ever.   

Yes, you can see people’s real age, it’s not like they’ve been completely washed out but it’s just kind of incredibly flattering.
Well, it’s almost like the Vaseline effect without the Vaseline. It’s a really soft light even though it’s really bright.

There’s a sense of spontaneity inherent in Polaroids, isn’t there? 
Exactly, yes. It’s less threatening in this day and age. Because it’s a hard copy of an image, there’s just one, and you cannot email it right away, or text it. And there is something playful about it – you know the anticipation of waiting for the image for a minute or two. There’s process to it, without it being a pain in the ass. And it’s engaging because everybody is part of the process. 

When you were backstage with people, did the celebrities wait to see their Polaroid developed?
No, they didn’t because it takes a few minutes for them to dry, but they saw the other ones. They would all look at the table where I laid the photos. They were really into it. They thought it was fun. The camera itself is a conversation piece, they made that camera for two years only so it’s really rare and it really has a huge physical presence. So it makes people feel more comfortable. Everybody has a personal relationship to a  Polaroid.    

Where did you get your camera?
I buy them online. I travel with five of them because they are not the highest quality camera. They break and I need to maintain them… I always have at least five when I am shooting.

Can anybody take a good Polaroid? 
Well, the lighting is very forgiving but it’s a range-finder so you have to be very specific about finding the focus and you have to be very close. Once you learn the tricks then yeah it’s doable. But you have to learn to focus and you have to anticipate what’s going to be in the actual frame because you don’t get what you’re seeing through the lens exactly. So the composing can be tricky… And with this type of portrait you really have ten seconds so it’s about engaging with the people whose photos you are taking so they’re candid but they are not pose-y, you know they have to feel like a real moment. Otherwise they can look like an ID photograph.

Sure. And did you just get one photo of each? 
It depends. In that situation it’s really high stress and peole have their publicists next to them dragging them to the next photo stop so if we’re lucky, we get two. In a few cases, like with Anna Gunn and Bryan Cranston, I was able to get a really intimate moment because they were so happy they just popped and they let me take a few. 

Click the gallery above to see a selection of Lucas Michael's Golden Globes 2014 Polaroids and visit the New York Magazine website to see all 37.