The Land Camera Model 150 was produced by Polaroid from 1957-60. The one that Victoria Reis gave me was apparently still working, or at least so she assumed, but how was she to know given that one can’t buy the film any more? Obsolete was her verdict, and I fell bound to agree with her. Still, it opened just as it should, folded out its telescopic accordion-like lens holder with a few clicks and pulls on hidden levers. As opposed from with today’s smartphones, one could figure this out with pure sight and some testing and logical thinking.
The extendible lens compartment really excited me. I definitely wanted to use it for something. A bunch of ideas went through my head. First I tried to make a holder for an iPhone in the innards of the old camera, so that Victoria could still use it, but the optics involved proved too much of a challenge. Then I briefly abandoned the idea of using the cameras optics, and instead planned turning the textile and rubber accordion behind the lens into a foldable holder for business or credit cards. Given Victoria’s vast collection of contacts, that would surely have been appropriate, but not so challenging, so I am glad I gave up that idea. Instead I turned the idea of obsolete on its head and pushed it to its extreme. By taking away some mechanical parts from the back of the camera, I managed to open up the space behind the lens. I then attached a thin sheet of silk paper exactly in the plane where the film would have been exposed, and covered it with a piece of transparent acrylic glass for protection. Finally I needed to find a suitable hood to cover the back of the open camera and provide the necessary darkness. A black nylon sports t-shirt from Walmart proved the thing. Now, if Victoria opened the camera, aimed it at a bright source of light, like outside at daytime for example, and crept in under the hood, she would have her very own Camera Obscura, projecting a perfect upside down image of the world on the silk paper. Instead of adapting an obsolete camera for the future, I had taken it back to its very origins.
