Polaroids and Tim Burton

Lately I have become a tad obsessed with the Polaroid (I bought myself an SX-70, and thanks to Polapremium, have the film to go with it). After seeing what I thought was Tim Burton's entire show at the MoMA, I walked around it again, somewhat frantically, trying to catch a glimpse of one of the large scale Polaroids that I had read about. No such luck. I finally found them, however, tucked away in the basement. A guard had to unlock the elevator to let us down there. But, oh! What a fabulous room it was! Tim Burton used a 20 x 24 Polaroid camera, an extremely large-scale camera to make beautifully vibrant photos of such things as fake plants in the desert and his dog with antler ears. William Wegman also used the 20 x 24 camera to take some of those famous dog photos. There are less than a dozen of these cameras in existence and after Polaroid decided it was no longer in the business of making instant film, they were all going to be destroyed. Luckily, in NYC, a team purchased all of the remaining chemistry and one of the cameras and have set up shop in Soho at the 20x24 Studio. Due to the recent bankruptcy hullabaloo, the Polaroid Collection, a vast collection of Polaroid photography from some of the world's most talented photographers, will likely be sold off piece by piece, including photos made with the 20x24.

Photos by Tim Burton.

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