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Elsa Dorfman:
This is Harvey, my husband.

He likes to go to the local
variety store at night...

to buy essentials, like,

our 50th box of tea
or something.

I always worry that he's gonna
get hit by a car.

I nagged him until he got--

Not exactly a bib,

it's sort of like
to ride a bicycle.

But instead of just putting it
on over your coat,

we had our friend
sew it very stylishly

on the front and back
and it's part of the coat.

He wears it with great flair.

And this coat knew

that it was going to be
photographed from the back.

It has all these buttonholes.

If anything,
the back is even greater

than the front.

The yellow is from
when you scoop up the chemicals.

If there's a residue
of chemistry,

then over time, it turns yellow.

(phone rings)

-(phone continues ringing)
-Shall I answer the phone?

-Interviewer: Sure.
-Okay.

(phone continues ringing)

Elsa: Hello?

Hi, oh, it's Gail.

Everybody it's Gail,
we're filming.

Yeah, we're on film right now.

Like the '60s when we used
to tape our conversations.

(laughing) And it would be
great and brilliant.

All right, sweetie, bye. Bye.

Reporter 1: Polaroid,
as we once knew it,

is fading away.
They stopped making cameras.

Now the company's announced

they're no longer gonna make
that instant film.

Reporter 2: So far, though,
Polaroid has not struck a deal

to let another company
make the film

to keep those cameras alive
and swinging.

Reporter 3:
After more than 30 years

in the photography business,
a world-renowned pioneer

of large format Polaroid
photography,

Elsa Dorfman, is retiring.

Interviewer: So let's look
at another picture, if we could.

Elsa: Okay. I'm gonna show you
first black and whites.

I wasn't born
as a color photographer.

I was a black and white
photographer

for about 15 years.

I'm looking here at a picture
of Ferlinghetti

and Gordon Cairnie,

and it's on photographic paper,
typical of me,

that hasn't been
properly washed,

and I'm gonna show you the back
because it's staining.

And it will contaminate
everything

in this nice gray box.

Here in the corner
of this picture

is an issue
of The Antioch Review...

which had a series
of my photographs

and poems by people.

And I think
it was for Gordon's birthday.

The Grolier
was like a beacon of sanity.

So many people were there,

all day long,

and everybody knew
everybody else.

There I was sitting on a couch.

What was easier
than taking pictures?

I met all these people in 1959

when I went from graduating
from Tufts

to getting a job in New York
as a secretary.

And in those days,

it was unheard of
for a nice Jewish girl

not to live with her parents
until she was married.

And one place
that I was interviewed

was Grove Press.

And I was hired.

Grove published
the Evergreen Review.

It was the time
of the Lady Chatterley's

Lover case.

Grove was right in the middle
of the Village.

Writers would come
to use the Apeco machine.

And in those days,
the girls, like me,

were in charge
of the Apeco machine,

which was the forerunner
of Xerox.

Ginsberg would come with like,

a 50-page manuscript
or a letter to Burroughs.

Ginsberg never did anything
without making a copy.

And one day he said to me,
"Where's the can?"

And I said, "The can?"

I had never heard
of the word "can"

for a bathroom.

I was like, "What?"

And we were friends
from that day

for the next 50 years, I guess.

Man: Mr. Allen Ginsberg is,
according to The New York Times,

quote, "Perhaps the most famous

and admired contemporary
American poet."

But he's known here in America
less as a poet than a prophet.

Allen Ginsberg:
America, I've given you all

and now I'm nothing.

America $2.27 January 17, 1956.

I can't stand my own mind.

America, when will we end
the human war?

Go fuck yourself
with your atom bomb

I don't feel good
don't bother me.

I won't write my poem
till I'm in my right mind.

America,
when will you be angelic?

When will you take off
your clothes?

When will you look at yourself
through the grave?

When will you be worthy
of your million Trotskyites?

America, why are your libraries
full of tears?

I decided that New York
was too much for me.

There was no woman that I met
who wasn't an alcoholic,

who wasn't promiscuous,

who wasn't a druggie,

and was creative
or had an interesting life.

Really a defeat for me
was I came home,

lived with my parents,
and went to BC

and got a degree
for teaching elementary school.

And I got a job teaching
in Concord, Massachusetts,

which was like a white,
wealthy suburb even back then.

And one of the parents
of a kid in my class

called me aside and said,
"You don't really belong here"

and sent me to the elementary
science program

that was set up by MIT people.

They took pictures
of all the teachers teaching,

and so I had a photographer
assigned to me.

And that photographer
gave me a camera,

didn't say to me,

"Oh, I'm loaning you
this Hasselblad.

It's a really good camera,
or it cost blah, blah, blah."

Just, "Here, use this camera.

It's called a Hasselblad."

There was a darkroom there
that they let me use.

Berenice Abbott
had set up that darkroom

and made her "Science"
photographs

that are so famous
in that darkroom.

He said to me,

"You could be like
Berenice Abbott."

Nobody had ever
said to me anything except,

"You could be a jerk."

I mean, they didn't say that
at Grove but--

that was where I picked up
a camera, was at ESI.

It was as incredible in its way
as Grove was.

I was just one lucky
little Jewish girl...

who escaped
by the skin of her teeth.

That's what I think.

Elsa: Almost
from the very beginning,

I took self-portraits.

Being comfortable
with the camera on myself

affected how I felt

in taking pictures
of other people.

I really had in my mind
that this was helping me

in some magical way
to take portraits

because people would sense
I did it to myself too.

Host:
I have a very special guest

this evening.
She is Elsa Dorfman.

Elsa is a photographer

who lives and works
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She is the author
of Elsa's Housebook:

A Woman's Photojournal.

I think one of the
amazing things about you

is that you never picked up
a camera

until you were 28 years old.

It was so embarrassing
not to be anything.

I wasn't married,

so you had to be called
something.

You know, when people said,
"What are you doing?"

In those days
it was mortifying not to be--

Not to be married. I mean...

So I had to have a thing.
So, what could be better?

My camera! I'm a photographer.

I'm always thinking
about my work

and how I want
to pull my work together

and what I want it to be
and the form I want it to take.

And I do that all the time,

when I'm sitting around
or talking

or in the morning,
cleaning up and stuff.

But when the minute
comes to taking the picture,

I'm not thinking
about that at all.

It's sort of like a reservoir
that's in me that's operating,

but I'm not thinking about it

when I actually have
the camera in my hand.

I'm really guided
by my unconscious.

Sounds sort of mystical, but...

I think I take my best pictures

when my head isn't cluttered
with other things.

Elsa, do you think the camera
tells the truth?

Absolutely not.

You take 20 pictures
in two minutes,

and they're so different.

Um... I think it's just--

It's, I mean,
that's what I love about it,

it's not real at all.

Here is the couch.

I bought this couch for $300

at a place near
the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

And I hired from the Phoenix
for ten dollars

some people to pick it up
and bring it to Flagg Street.

And they were on the cover
of the Housebook.

(laughing)

Interviewer: Tell me about
the cord in the picture.

Elsa: It's the cable release.

It's sort of an act of God,

because the cable
release is in the perfect place,

and I had no idea

it would be
in the perfect place,

and it fell
in the perfect place.

And it's amazing,
it's like a gift.

And the dress
is my favorite Marimekko.

The shopping cart
is very relevant in the distance

because this is
the shopping cart

that I sold my pictures
on the street for two dollars.

And they let me borrow it.

I didn't have to,
you know, pilfer it.

They let me borrow it
from the store.

Every year I would return it,

and every year
I would borrow it.

And I sold these pictures,

along with other pictures,
in Harvard Square.

The police would come
and want to chase me away.

And I had a letter
that Harvey had composed

saying I was protected
by the First Amendment,

and I alerted
the chief of police,

and they let me stay there.

And the funniest thing is
that a couple of those pictures

are owned
by the Museum of Fine Arts.

But it was weird because later

I'd run into people
and they'd say,

"Oh, I rented an apartment

and a picture of yours
was in the bathroom.

Somebody left it there."

They knew
how to make me feel good.

Really.

This one of Harvey...

and Harvey was on the phone

with his really close friend
who was in Europe,

Norman Zalkind,
who he practices law with.

And I was probably going,

(fingers tapping)

"Harvey, you've been on
the phone a long time

and it's expensive."
(laughing)

This is my mother.

"Elsa."

And it's my favorite picture
of my mother.

I didn't realize it at the time,
but it is so my mother.

Bringing food,

and my father
being in the background,

but there.

I'm sure she also brought
a bag of bargains

because she was a total
bargain-obsessed person.

Anything under ten dollars
that should be 15, she bought.

Oh, here's a picture of--

This is kind of nice
of Flagg Street.

This tree, of course,
isn't there anymore.

I lived at 19 Flagg Street.

I had this great
little duplex house.

It was a great place
with a little backyard.

Harvey moved to Flagg Street
two houses away,

and we had the two apartments.

And the light was such,

it was perfect
for taking pictures

in the middle of the night.

Like a photo set.

I didn't have a fancy lens

that let you take pictures
in the dark.

One of the things that's fun

about going through
a box like this...

is that question,
how things turn out.

And one thing, when I look
at these pictures

of the Housebook,

I can't help but feel
about how many people are dead

and how many people struggled.

You can predict, predict,
and predict,

but life is still unpredictable.

It certainly does
something to me

when I go through a box,

or I go through a lot of prints
of the Housebook.

I'm amazed how young we were,

how many of us
aren't still here.

(soft music playing)

I think one thing
about having all the pictures,

you sort of search for like,
the narrative.

But there probably
is no narrative.

It's just sort of what happened.

It doesn't go by a script.

That's what I've decided.

(music playing)

Elsa: Dylan did something

called
the Rolling ThundermRevue.

Before you went
into the auditorium,

they confiscated you
not for guns,

but for cameras.

So I didn't have my camera,

and Allen told Bob,

"Oh, this is Elsa Dorfman,
and she's a good photographer."

And Bob said,
"Well, where's your camera?"

And I said,
"They took it away from me."

And he said, "Go tell them
I said you could get it."

So I had to go
running to the car,

get the camera, pass these guys,

"I have permission,
I have permission."

(laughs)

And this is in between sets.

It's like quote
"the green room,"

it was a teacher's room.

Somebody had been signed up
to document the tour,

and once they realized
I knew how to focus a camera,

they said, "Get her off the set.

Get her off the set."

And poor Bob,
he couldn't do anything.

This is on beautiful rag paper.

This was a 35mm negative.

And I've had this
in postcard form.

Sounds very, like,

ungracious to say,
"Oh, I love that,"

but once I make them
and I see them like this,

I'm very separated
from them in a way.

Can't really say
about your child,

"Yeah, I know he's adorable.

You know, he's really fabulous."

But I can say that
about my work.

I mean, I feel proud
and incredulous,

but I don't feel falsely modest.

But I don't feel
bragging, either.

I feel,
"Yeah, that's really great.

"That's shitty,
but this is great," you know?

There's a separation,

like it's gone off to college,

and there it is
getting its degree.

(laughs)

We're still a long way

from the realization
of the concept

of a camera that would be,
oh, like the telephone,

something that you use
all day long.

Whenever an occasion arises

in which you want to make sure

that you cannot trust
your memory.

I look forward to the time
a few years from now...

when you come here

to share with us the excitement
and deep satisfaction

of seeing all this in operation

and at the same time

starting to use
our ultimate camera

that is a part
of the evolving human being.

Elsa: The 20 by 24

took Cambridge by blitz.

Polaroid had an Artist
Support Program.

There were like ten people
that were invited.

I wasn't on that list,

but of course I went
and I saw it.

I was already interested
in large format.

Carpenter Center got something
called the Itek machine.

You put in
a 35 millimeter negative,

and low and behold,

you got a big print.

So, I mean,
the image will be familiar,

but here it is
in the Itek machine form.

So already my mind
was thinking big, okay?

So I'm just gonna show you these
because I'm interested myself,

I haven't looked at these
in like 30 years.

And so here's another fragment.

It was very fragile paper
and it would come out

and you'd have to put it
in stop and fixer.

But this much came out

like as if it were
a Xerox copier.

Here's a Harvard graduation.

This is so typical of the times.

Here's a guy with his Ph.D.,

and his wife is cradling
an infant.

But this is kind of great.

But unlike the 20 by 24,

where you look
at a 20 by 24 picture

and you know that the impetus

and the expression
of the picture

partly exist
because of the camera,

these are taken by
a 35mm and blown up,

and they don't have
any of the juice

of a different camera
or a different format

or a different relationship
with the photographer.

The whole scale and everything

comes from the process
after the picture is taken.

Whereas in the 20 by 24,

the picture and the process
are the same.

But I think that holding up
a big picture

led to my comfort
with the 20 by 24.

So I think it was an important--

That if you were making
some sort of arty or academic,

this led to this led to this--

You could say that playing
with the Itek machine

led to my comfort
with the 20 by 24.

And my compulsion with it.

Okay. Now look
right at the lens,

don't look at me,
even though it's very tempting.

Look right at the lens.

Man: Elsa is one of several
photographers in the country

who regularly rents
this rare 20 by 24 camera,

one of only five in the world,

located at the School
of the Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston.

Elsa: I love the 20 by 24.

There's something
really marvelous

about the scale and the clarity
that makes it heroic.

My style of photography
is very literary...

Woman: Oh, God. Oh, God.

Oh, great, oh, good.

Elsa: Influenced
by Allen Ginsberg's poetry

in the acceptance of detail
and everydayness--

what you're wearing is okay
and who you are is okay

and you don't have
to be cosmeticized.

And so I've always
taken pictures of my family

and the people that I know,

and I have lots of pictures
of my son and my husband.

You know,
I just was looking for medium,

and I just found it.

This was the first time
I used the 20 by 24.

I made a deal with Polaroid

that I would take
Allen's picture

and they could keep
the two best.

So I have to tell you

that the two best
are owned by Polaroid,

but not really by Polaroid

because now
they've been dispersed

and I don't know who owns them.

This is 1980.

Harvey had bought me
an amaryllis.

We grabbed the amaryllis,
Allen and I.

I'm gonna hold it up like this

because my shirt
matches the amaryllis.

Ta-da!

You've got to understand
that Allen Ginsberg

really understood a camera.

He could disarm himself,

so he wasn't guarded.

This is from '82.

Look at the focus on the beard.

There'll never be film
like this again

ever, ever, ever.

Interviewer: Oh, wow,
I've never even seen this, Elsa.

Elsa: No,
how could you have seen it?

I haven't seen it in 20 years.

It's so funny, isn't it?

Now I know that this is one
that Polaroid had.

I think I made two of these
and Polaroid kept one.

Now I'm gonna show you something

about how fragile this is.

I don't know whether
you can take a picture of it,

but in the back here,
there's a crack.

I don't know whether you care,
but right here.

Even though
this is very good paper,

and this is early paper,

it's really fragile.

Ah! Here's Jonathan.

This is one of the very first
pictures I did,

and Jonathan came down
from Maine...

where he was living
and I took this picture.

So let's see what I wrote on it.

You can see that this is

before I made
the pictures longer.

This is where the pod broke open

and I cut,
trimmed the paper right there.

Later, as I got used
to taking the pictures,

I made them longer.

So this says "Jonathan Richman
in from Unity, Maine in 1981."

Man: All right,
now we're going to turn

-to the two of them.
-(laughing)

Let's wave to the future.

(soft music playing)

Elsa: I have everything
in these flat files.

Let's see, this is in 1981,

and there's my mother.

Now I'm older than my mother
in this picture.

My father, and Isaac, and me.

And some Legos,
Isaac was a big Lego freak.

And this is one of the few times
that I had red background.

Interviewer:
And the red background was?

Just there.

Because it's a big deal
to change the seamless.

It's interesting to me

because I look at my mother
and father, and I wonder...

so who am I like
and where did I get what?

And now to see them
looking young,

they never looked young,
but now they look young.

This one,
let me just see what this is,

it looks really sad.

This is a camera error.

My clothes aren't really
looking like that.

It's something in the film
called mottle,

M-O-T-T-L-E,

and it has to do
with the rollers.

It's like the camera knew
what I was going through.

"My mother called
four times today.

She doesn't know who I am
or where I live or what I do.

She doesn't remember
Harvey or Isaac.

I asked her
if she wanted to die.

'Elsa,
sometimes you're ridiculous.'"

My mother was always telling me
I was ridiculous.

"Elsa, you're ridiculous."

And so one of her
last cogent things

was telling me I was ridiculous.

And it's true,

I would stand at that telephone
over there.

It would be my mother
like ten times,

and it was the most awful,

awful, awful experience,

was my mother dying,
my mother and my father both.

Oh, here I am,

here I am, here I am.

Here I am with a picture
of my mother and father

holding their wedding picture.

And it says,
"My father died last night.

My mother said goodbye Dorfie.

September 24, 1997."

It was just awful.

My father tried to escape
from the nursing home.

He got as far as the bus stop,

he had the sense
to wait for a bus,

and they sent
his favorite nurse out

to talk him into coming back
into the building.

I thought it was a sign

of my father's well being
that he could--

That he wanted to escape,
and he could carry it off.

But I was the only one.

It was awful.

(soft music playing)

Elsa: What I really feel
like doing in this darkroom

is having like
a darkroom museum.

Everything has a story
in this darkroom.

This--

I was gonna say,
I don't want to open it

and expose any film
that's in here.

(laughs)

Oh, here's film
that's probably dead--

Ilford, Ilford film.

Oh, this is a little
panoramic camera.

What I thought it was
is a dollar camera.

A dollar camera
was a very big hit in the '60s,

and it was a great way
of showing people

how to take pictures.

I bet they don't even sell
these anymore.

I can see that the darkroom
was a repository

for what I didn't want
to throw away.

Here's actually
something essential.

This is a light bar

you would put on
a Polaroid camera

to light a picture.

And then they stopped
making them,

it was a disaster.

"For Polaroid's
SX-70 film cameras."

Don't you remember
the first time you saw it?

It is magical.

And after a lifetime
in the darkroom,

it seems more magical.

When I was on the 20 by 24,

I was like...

the most excited person
in the world.

I had never dreamt
that the next 30 years,

that's what I would be doing.

I wanted
to keep on taking pictures

on the 20 by 24.

And you had to be
in this inner circle.

It was really hard to break
the line of their pets...

really.
Because I was never a pet.

And I just hung in there.

I always was charged
for every roll of film,

I never got a free box of film,

I never got a free SX-70,
I never got anything.

But anyhow, I can't complain

because I ended up
with the camera.

But that was from being a nag.

(laughs)

I kept saying,
"Well, I want to rent a camera,

I want to buy a camera,
I want to make a camera."

And I got to be friendly

with different people
at Polaroid,

and I found out
that there was a camera

that was coming back from Japan.

That put a hole in their theory
that there was no camera.

So they said,

"Well, you have to find
a decent place to put it."

And it so happened

that Harvey had a relationship
with Harold Brown.

And Harold Brown
bought a building,

955 Mass. Ave.,

which was two blocks
from our house.

Polaroid said,

"Okay, if you're gonna be
in this building,

I'll rent you the camera."

Elsa: I can't really explain it
too much,

but portraits have always been
what's interesting to me.

And I try to make people
feel comfortable

so that they'll give a lot
of themselves.

But I'm not--
Don't want to invade them

to get more
than they're willing to give.

And I like to say to people,

"You're responsible

for how you look
in front of my camera.

You can't come
in front of my camera

and expect me to do it all."

I mean,
I've had like adolescents say,

"Well, this is what
you're gonna get."

And you know,
I sort of said like, "Fuck you.

You know,
this is what you're giving me,

this is what
you're gonna get back.

This is no airbrush studio,

this is what you're gonna get!"

I'm really interested
in the surfaces of people.

I am totally not interested
in capturing their souls.

I'm only interested
in how they seem.

That's how I feel
about my portraits

and how, for me,
portraiture works.

Interviewer: When did you
come up with this idea,

how you would sell these?

Elsa: It wasn't
a thought-out plan at all.

I had to pay the rent
for Mass. Ave.,

I had to pay the rent
on the camera,

and I had to pay for the film.

So I had to charge money,

so I always tried to charge

as much as I reasonably thought
I could earn.

First place, it was impossible

to get into a gallery.

I didn't have the work

and I didn't have
the personality

to interest any Boston dealer
in representing me.

There was one
who did represent me

and gave me a show,

but it wasn't for me.

And I probably did

as well as I could have done
with a gallery.

(sighs)
I don't know the answer.

I did what felt
like an extension of myself,

like, "Oh, this is something
Elsa would do,"

you know what I mean?

As opposed to doing something

that I felt,
"What is Elsa doing?"

Everything I did
made sense if you knew me.

Or if you knew me and Harvey.

This was my 50th birthday.

Harvey bought me
these black balloons.

He was walking near his office,

and he saw a guy in a tuxedo
delivering black balloons.

And he got the idea,

"That's what I'll give her,
black balloons."

Isaac comes home from school
and the doorbell rings,

and it's a guy
delivering black balloons.

And so I said,

"We've got to take
a picture with this."

I took one shot and this was it.

I think for the next 11 years,

Harvey gave me black balloons
on my birthday.

And it wouldn't be so funny

except that Harvey was not
a "Happy Birthday" person.

When I turned 75,

he went the whole day
before saying to me,

"Happy Birthday."

You know,
you want to murder the guy.

He was not one
for Valentine's Day

or anything like that.

This is another one
of the birthday ones.

So that one
was my 51st birthday in '88.

So this is 54,
a few years later.

Isaac has really changed
in this one.

And we looked so funny
padding around the house

in our warm red nightgowns.

I said, "Oh, we have to go over
to the studio."

And this shows
how game Harvey could be,

for all his, "Your birthday,"

he did stop what he was doing
and take a picture,

go over, change his clothes,
and pose in front of the camera.

(soft music playing)

Elsa: My work
is about affection.

People come to me

and they want the picture taken
either out of affection

for the person they're giving
the photograph to,

or affection for the person
they're gonna be with.

It's very family-oriented.

When I first started,
the very first time

I showed my Polaroids
was at MIT,

and they matted them
and got rid of the borders.

And I had to complain

and say, "No, no, no,
I have to have the borders."

And they said,
"All right, all right,"

you know, "this woman
is a pain in the ass.

All right, all right."

And they did it.

These marks right here

are like the tire marks
on the side

as the roller is going
through the camera.

So those actually mean
something.

You can actually tell
which camera

is being used by the tire marks.

And my tires
have never been changed.

Elsa: The camera is
like a fork or a spoon.

It's an instrument
that you eat your soup with.

It's not the soup.

So it depends upon
who's holding the camera

and who's doing the photograph.

I think a lot of my work,
people have said,

"Oh, her work is too sunny."

The explanation is, in my life
I've worked hard not to be down.

Life when you're down
is hard enough,

you don't need to walk around
with a picture of it.

I'm not good at...

"Oh yeah, it's really bad."

"Your mother is a witch,
your husband is awful."

"The food is lousy.
Yeah, you're right.

You should hear my story."

I'm not that kind of person.

I don't like to take pictures
of people who are sad.

And I don't like
to take pictures

of people
who are broken-hearted.

I somehow have
this misguided therapeutic idea

that it's my role
in the universe

to make people feel better.

"This'll be easy.
Look, it's easy.

Let's have fun."

So I do whip up
a certain energy.

Interviewer: So you've taken
thousands of these?

Don't forget,
a lot of these are mistakes.

But because they're 20 by 24s,

they're too expensive
to throw away.

Interviewer:
A lot of these are mistakes?

Yeah, because when I have
a client, I take two.

And the client chooses one
and the other one is a reject.

This is the one
that the family didn't take.

I call the B-side.

You know how in music
there's an A-side and a B-side?

I can see
by looking at this one,

which has so much charm to it,

this is probably better
than the one they did take.

Here's another one.

And so this is sort
of a good panorama

of what people were wearing
for sneakers 13 years ago.

Very often, they have blinks

and it's really
the unusual family

that will take one
with a kid blinking.

But this is not a bad blink.

He's really cute.

Just let me see again, hold on.

Red-haired and blue-eyed

or certainly green-eyed people
blink in the lights.

Yeah, they really do.

Like here's one
that's really cute and it--

And the people, probably,
didn't like the mother.

But I think it's adorable.

Now, they look
perfectly wonderful.

I don't see anything wrong
with this one.

Why didn't the family want it?

Oh, now here's one.

Look at this.

God knows what caused this.

This is from the camera.

The color is from a problem
with the film but I love it.

Interviewer:
The other part of this process

that fascinates me
is the element of perishability.

Right.

Interviewer:
Fugitive color, fugitive images.

I try to deny it.

I would say in the last year,

I've had an awakening

because...

...I don't think I had any idea
how fugitive they really were.

So the warning
I gave my clients was,

"Keep your portrait
out of the direct sun.

Polish your frame rarely
and when you do,

use Plexiglas cleaner
and a soft cloth.

Never, ever use Windex
and paper towel.

Enjoy."

Isaac and Harvey
had been hanging on the wall

since we moved into this house.

(soft music playing)

The 40 by 80s represent
a Polaroid

that completely disappeared.

There's never going to be
a 40 by 80 Polaroid again, ever.

Color Services,
they're gonna copy the 40 by 80s

and then tell me
whether I should put them

back in frames
or how I should store them.

I knew from
the Polaroid grape vine

that they were working
with a 40 by 80.

The Polaroid grape vine is where
you found out everything.

"Oh, yeah, I can't do this

because tomorrow I'm working
at the museum on the 40 by 80."

Or, "Can you imagine
the film isn't ready?"

More grousing.

"Can you imagine?

Can't count on those people
down in packaging."

Oh, you know.

The camera was like a room
with a hole for a lens.

You were outside
and there was a pedestal

and you're standing
like at this height.

The rollers for the lens

had to be as big as this,
this is 1:1.

And any little sneeze then,

where you went slower,

would be a different color
than if you picked up your pace.

And if you're not even,
you can really see it.

Interviewer: The idea
of writing these captions,

where did that come from?

Elsa: I kind of liked the idea

because then you know
when you took it.

I mean, it's so instinctive
and intuitive.

So I did it, then Allen,

when he started
to take pictures,

he wrote under his pictures.

He actually, in an interview,

says that he got the idea
from me.

I mean,
it's not a very big idea.

Interviewer: Well, tell me
about the circumstances

of this photograph.

Elsa: Allen was coming to town

and I got Polaroid
to let me use the 40 by 80.

First, we did the dressed one

and I think Allen's
wearing his suit

that he actually got buried in.

Then once we hung up
that dressed one,

it sort of was like
a normal response.

"Oh, why don't we take--
Put that behind a naked one?"

It wasn't like an act of genius.

It was just like,

"Well, we have the ice cream
and we have the cones.

Why don't we put the ice cream
on top of the cone?"

I mean, like...

There were no test shots
and no rehearsal.

It's really a miracle
when you think that this one--

there's another one behind it,
you know what I mean?

He loved to have
his picture taken naked.

Interviewer:
So it most certainly was not you

that insisted on the nudity?

No. I was a good Jewish girl.
No, no, no.

I would never, I don't think I--

No, because to this day,

I'll always remember
the first time

Allen opened up the door naked.

"What?"
(laughs)

He loved the camera anyhow.

He was an omnivore.

Interviewer:
Does it bring Allen back,

looking at these photographs?

Oh, of course, it does.

Maybe that's when photographs
have their ultimate meaning,

is when the person dies.

Answering Machine:
Monday, 4:33 p.m., line one.

Ginsberg: Hi, Elsa,
this is Allen Ginsberg.

Um... I'm in
Beth Israel Hospital.

Some serious news.

212-420-3301.

And I'll be here
until Wednesday to go home.

Um... I have
something more serious,

so... as soon as
you can reach me, best.

Thank you and best regards
to Harvey.

And I have a call

and I'm waiting to hear
from Dr. Lau.

Okey-doke. See you.

Answering Machine:
Friday, 3:05 p.m., line one.

Man:
Listen, Elsa, Allen came home
from the hospital on Wednesday

and was feeling good,
hospice situation,

you know, about the cancer.

But he had a stroke last night,
Thursday night,

and he's in a final coma now.

So just put
your thoughts to Allen.

He's in a picture of repose,

surrounded by people
who love him

and good medical care.

But we're not doing
anything intrusive.

We're letting him go. Okay?
Thank you.

Wow.

Elsa: I owe Allen a big debt.

It would be too corny
to say the debt of life,

but the debt of a friend.

If you're a kind of a

"Oh, this will be
the same forever" person...

Or if you're a photographer

and you're always nailing down
what's the now...

...when you realize
it doesn't matter

how much you try
to nail down the now,

the now is racing beyond you.

All of a sudden,
you have these cameras that--

They're artifacts like ashtrays.

Interviewer:
When did you know that this film

was just no longer
going to be available?

Because everybody was talking
about it every day.

It was sort of like--
As if it were a bakery,

"How's the butter today?"

"Oh, the cows
are making it purple."

Polaroid was very intimate,

so everybody knew everything
and everybody cared.

So the word spread.

The company went bankrupt
and idiots bought it.

The people who bought it
were only interested

in the brand name.

They weren't going to save
anything.

They threw away
the most wonderful things.

They had no respect
for great machinery.

It's hard for me to feel angered

when I had the camera
all this time,

and when I owe my life
to the Polaroid.

So many people who worked
for Polaroid were so nice to me.

But I'm certainly angry
at the people who...

...made all
the stupid decisions.

So when Polaroid
was gonna destroy

all the remaining film,

I realized
something had to happen.

And that was how
Dan Stern was such a lifesaver

in putting up the money
for saving the leftover film.

I don't want to give up
the studio

and I wanna be able
to take pictures of myself

and my friends
and not worry if there are lines

or money or anything.

I just thought like, enough.

So that was when I knew.

Interviewer:
What is going to happen

to this archive?

Elsa: I don't have a clue.

I don't have a clue.

Maybe the best will be sold

and then another decade
will go by

and the pretty-goods
will be sold,

and then somebody will say,
"Oh, there are the rejects."

They'll be sold.

If I were lucky,
that would be what would happen.

But... But I have no idea.

You know,
Boston is full of photographers

who worry about that

and nobody has any solution.

Some people are very--

You know,
have made arrangements

with like Yale

or, you know,
somebody to take their work

or take it with an endowment,
or who the hell knows.

I don't have the stamina
for that,

you know what I mean?
I couldn't do that.

So when people get together,

they used to talk about

where their kid
would go to college

and would their kid get
into nursery school

and what nursery school and...

But now they talk about

where their archive
is going to go.

It's awful.

(laughs)

(soft music playing)

What amazes me

is that you just have to wait
long enough

because my work was so rejected

and so put down,

it adds to the pleasure
of people liking it now.

For so long,
I was at the bottom of the list.

Even at Polaroid,
I was at the bottom of the list.

Really, way at the bottom.

But somehow,
I just kept plowing along.

So maybe at some point,
somebody'll say,

"Oh, those white file drawers,

they wouldn't be so bad
to have here."

But I don't know.

And I was lucky in the way
to find a camera and to like it.

It's a real way
of being a quote "artist"

and having an off-beat life...

...inventing sort of a way
of living that's comfortable.

It worked.

I feel very grateful that it--
That it worked.