The Branding of Polaroid, 1957 - 1977

Stan Calderwood and me

As the great designer Will Burtin, an early art director of Fortune magazine said, it would not have been possible to create such monumental work as he did for Container Corporation of America without the total support and cooperation of Walter Paepke, president of CCA. Click on image to enlarge photo.

Stan Calderwood made my work a breeze. He was the in-house power that caused all the good things that happened for Polaroid in its golden years. This is Stan posing above for my Hasselblad SuperWide shot in his spare and functional office in the old factory building at 119 Windsor Street that served as home for Polaroid's sales and advertising troops.

Stan and me, enjoying some jovial banter at an office function that involved some bubbly.

Cameras, 1958

The 35mm Leica with its f/2 lens, above, and the Rolleiflex with a slower f/3.5 lens, were the top models in use at this time. The Rollei, shown below slung over my shoulders, produced 2-1/4 inch square negatives on 120 film. The Leica was a range-finder camera, which was all that was available until single-lens reflex models came along. The Rollei allowed a user to focus almost as a single-lens reflex but there was a problem with parallax. It was not always easy to see in the viewfinder, hence the hand-made black cardboard shield I used to help me clearly see and focus. I was also using a cable release to eliminate camera shake.