Polaroid 40 x 80 camera!!!

[sheldon hambrick]

As Im typing this, Im listing to a story on NPR (National Public Radio) about the Polaroid 40 x 80 camera!!! Now I know about the 20x24, but never heard about the 40 x 80 (or Mo Bee Cee) until now. Are there any stories or pictur es of this monster on the Net? A Canadian photog now owns it.

[tim atherton]

A few years ago I saw a documentary about the photographer using this - I think it was on a Canadian channel up here - quite a monster! You should have seen them peeling apart the film.... But what a great print it makes. Most of it was homo-erotic art, very well done and quite interesting, but not my personal cup of tea.

Tim A

[Sean Billy Bob Boy yates]

If I can find it I have a clipping that ran in, "shudder", PoP Photo or something about a room-sized Polaroid camera used to make reproductions of famous works of art. I can't recall how big the resulting image is/was but the illustration attached seemed to indicate the dimensions were at least that big.

[David A. Goldfarb]

The segment can be found at:

http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnps05fm.cfm?SegID=75776

[Bill Jefferson]

The 40x80 camera was a room turned into a camera, it was at the museum of fine arts in Boston, I believed its been moved

Bill

[Ron Mc]

Bill is right. It is the same camera that was at the Boston museum. It was sold to an artist and he has moved it to New York. Bill Wegman plans to rent it.

[Donald Brewster]

It is the camera that was in Boston. You can rent the camera on site for $2,000 a day and the film costs are apparently $300 an exposure. Yikes! You might check Elsa Dorfman's (sp ?) site -- I think it is connected/linked to Phil Greenspuns. I believe she's used the BIG camera on occasion for her work -- I know she regularly uses the 20x24 Poloroid.

[Erik The Viking]

There is a wonderful moving story by Frank Riper of the Washington Post on how this behemoth heals<a href ="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/index.htm ">right here.<a/>

[Erik The Viking]

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[Tracy Storer]

The Canadian Artist referred to in one of the responses is Evergon, the current owner of the camera is Gregory Colbert, studio manager/operator is Mark Sobczak. Contact Mark for rental info at zeeda@earthlink.net Tracy Storer