A
portrait photographer, known best for her large-format
Polaroid portraits.
For the last twenty years, she's been shooting with the
immense
Polaroid 20x24 camera (only six of which exist),
which produces a print about 5 feet by 3 feet. Elsa then adds a caption
(e.g. "Allen Ginsberg at the Polaroid Studio, 2/7/80") at
the bottom of each print in her signature hasty scrawl.
Many of her photos are of her family or her friends,
including Allen Ginsberg, Errol Morris, and Philip Greenspun; she also shoots family portraits and miscellanous subjects such as clowns or pets. Her portraits
are occasionally reviewed, exhibited, or appear on covers of books, including Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing.
For some time, Elsa has been a commercial photographer.
If you visit Cambridge, MA or New York City, $3000 or so will buy you
your very own Elsa Dorfman: she'll happily snap a photo of you
and your friends, family, pets, and/or favorite things. It's an odd thing --
odder than the photographic preservation of a moment or an occasion -- to be preserved
with your dog and a symbolic necktie: nearly life-sized, against an empty white background,
tersely labeled. But appealing at the same time.
Elsa's website: http://elsa.photo.net