Polaroid

A federal court jury in Boston ordered Polaroid to pay $9.75 to investors for each share of its stock they bought during six weeks in 1979, saying it had failed to disclose adverse financial information about its Polavision instant movie camera. The jury said damages must be paid to all investors who purchased Polaroid common stock between Jan. 11 and Feb. 22, 1979, and held that stock until the end of that period or longer.

Frances Stark's right arm is as good a place as any to begin to consider what drives the artist and writer. She sports two tattoos there, one an ornate foliate pattern based on a Louis Sullivan drawing, inked near her shoulder when she was in college, during the "five minutes" she aspired to be an architecture critic. The other, on her inner arm just above the elbow, reads "Me Edith," in simple cursive. Edith was her grandmother, an avid amateur photographer. "There's a sepia-tone print of her in a bathing suit looking really cute," Stark explained.

Amid the gyrations of leotard-clad dancers and the clicking of hundreds of free sample cameras, Polaroid threw a $1-million coming-out party Wednesday at the Century Plaza Hotel for its latest invention in instant photography--a camera and accompanying film called the Spectra System.

Javier Prado marks his turf with a plastic folding chair. Ramon Alvarez guards a concrete bench. Efren Castellanos, the one they call La Hormiga ("the Ant"), brazenly goes wherever he pleases. He should, he argues. He's been here the longest. "Just let them try and tell me something," he says. "I've earned my spot." The Polaroid photographers of MacArthur Park are old-timers, the last of a dying breed. They've been sparring under the palm trees now for nearly 40 years.

Polaroid Corp. said its profits for the year and fourth quarter plummeted 48.3% and 59.2%, respectively, as the growing strength of the U.S. dollar cut sharply into overseas sales. For the full year, the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm said profit fell 48.3% to $25.7 million from $49.7 million in 1983. Revenue rose slightly in 1984, to $1.27 billion from $1.25 billion in 1983, the company said. The manufacturer of instant cameras and films said its profit fell to $10.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based photography giant said it acquired "for less than $1 million" the major portion of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Verbatim Corp.'s Data Encore division. The division copies software onto floppy disks in a way that makes it difficult for software "pirates" to re-copy the material.

Javier Prado marks his turf with a plastic folding chair. Ramon Alvarez guards a concrete bench. Efren Castellanos, the one they call La Hormiga ("the Ant"), brazenly goes wherever he pleases. He should, he argues. He's been here the longest. "Just let them try and tell me something," he says. "I've earned my spot." The Polaroid photographers of MacArthur Park are old-timers, the last of a dying breed. They've been sparring under the palm trees now for nearly 40 years.

Ex-Polaroid Worker Sues: A former Polaroid worker is suing the company to claim for employees a portion of Polaroid's recent $925-million settlement with Eastman Kodak Co. In his class-action suit, Don Pizzuti says workers are entitled to $185 million of the out-of-court settlement over Polaroid's claim that Kodak infringed on its instant-photography patent. Polaroid has offered $30 million to settle the dispute, Pizzuti said. But Polaroid lawyer Richard deLima said the Cambridge, Mass.

Frances Stark's right arm is as good a place as any to begin to consider what drives the artist and writer. She sports two tattoos there, one an ornate foliate pattern based on a Louis Sullivan drawing, inked near her shoulder when she was in college, during the "five minutes" she aspired to be an architecture critic. The other, on her inner arm just above the elbow, reads "Me Edith," in simple cursive. Edith was her grandmother, an avid amateur photographer. "There's a sepia-tone print of her in a bathing suit looking really cute," Stark explained.

Michael D. Heil, former president of Sony's Display Products Co., and previously a marketing executive with Atari, Polaroid and Lever Bros., has been named president of Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co., a competitor of PacTel Cellular for the mobile-phone market in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura and San Bernardino counties. Two-year-old L.A. Cellular is based in City of Commerce.

In the early days of Hollywood, dreams of stardom began for aspiring actresses upon arrival from small-town America, when they took up residence at one of the neighborhood's romantic and exotic-sounding hotels such as the DuBarry, Las Palmas or Ravenswood. Jim McHugh, a photographer and third-generation Angeleno, pays homage to these landmark buildings, along with other disappearing landscape remnants, in his collection "Let's Get Lost: Polaroids From the Coast," at Timothy Yarger Fine Art in Beverly Hills.

Berlin film fest opens The Berlin film festival opened Thursday with a premiere from Chinese director Wang Quan'an that follows the bittersweet reunion of a couple divided for decades across the Taiwan Strait. "Apart Together" marked Wang's return to Berlin after winning the festival's top Golden Bear award with "Tuya's Marriage" in 2007. It is the first of 20 movies competing for honors at the event's 60th edition -- the first of the year's major European film festivals.

Polaroid Corp., the twice-bankrupt pioneer of instant photography, failed to win court approval of a $56.3-million sale of most of its assets and a judge reopened the auction, according to two of the bidders and a creditor. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gregory Kishel issued the decision in St. Paul, Minn., where Polaroid sought approval to sell itself to a joint-venture of two liquidation firms, Hilco Consumer Capital of Toronto and Gordon Brothers Brands of Boston, Hilco said.

Was there ever an artist and a technology better suited to each other than Andy Warhol and the Polaroid camera? After all, Warhol reveled in mass-produced art as well as the fabulosity of instant (and instantly disposable) celebrity. The Polaroid camera allowed him to put those beliefs into point-and-shoot practice, and he enthusiastically churned out images by the thousands.

Polaroid Corp., the 70-year-old photography-film company, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors more than two months after Tom Petters, founder of Polaroid parent Petters Group Worldwide, was arrested on allegations of fraud Oct. 3. Polaroid, based in Minnetonka, Minn., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Minneapolis. Petters Group filed for bankruptcy Oct. 11.

Polaroid Holding Co., owner of the camera brand that pioneered instant photography, said Friday that it agreed to be acquired by investment firm Petters Group Worldwide for about $426 million in cash. Under the deal, Polaroid shareholders would receive $12.08 a share, 13% more than Friday's closing price of $10.70 in over-the-counter trading. Petters, which owns a company that sells Polaroid DVD players and plasma televisions, would add cameras and other products to its lineup.

Bausch & Lomb, (716) 338-6000. Bausch & Lomb manufactures 400 models of Ray-Ban sunglasses, which come only in glass lenses. All models screen 98% and more of ultraviolet rays. A 100% model is the B-15 Top Gradient Mirror Lens ($64). The company produces two other, non-glass lines that screen 98%: Wings and Expressions. All Bausch & Lomb sunglasses have hang-tags with UV information. Bolle America, (800) 554-6686. Bolle Irex 90+ and Bolle Irex 100 screen out 100% ultraviolet rays ($40-$135).

Thank you, Joe McNally. I walked, crying, from 9-foot photo to 9-foot photo at the "Faces of Ground Zero" exhibit at the Skirball Museum ("N.Y.'s State of Mind," by Scarlet Cheng, June 20). The men and women of Sept. 11 are more than moving, they are haunting. The pictures are larger-than-life reminders of rescuers who committed unfathomable acts of heroism, comrades and family members of those who did not make it. It is more than Polaroid patriotism, more than instant Americana; it is the essence of what people will do for each other, as a matter of course, what they will do for total strangers.

To reach Mary Ellen Mark's studio, just above Greene Street in Manhattan's SoHo district, one enters an elevator that opens onto the sidewalk, opening and closing to the street like the shutter of a camera. It lifts you to a floor bustling with activity, filled with books of her work and walls covered with photographs. She's taken pictures of circuses in Vietnam and India and of urban street culture in American cities. For her new book, "Twins," she took pictures at a twins festival, "Twins Days" in Twinsburg, Ohio.