Untitled, from the series "Wild West"

In 1986 the Polaroid company invited David Levinthal to experiment with its 20 × 24–inch camera, a massive apparatus weighing more than 200 pounds. Because instant photographs are printed right in the camera, large pictures necessitate large equipment. Levinthal liked the saturated colors, lustrous surface, and large size of the resulting photograph, and it became his primary format for the next 20 years. Dark brown and yellow development stains along the edges of the print were formed by residues of developing chemicals and are typical of large instant photographs. The prints are exceptionally sensitive to light and creasing, requiring careful handling.