This project is a continuation of my prior Pop Art-inspired projects: Sweetstuff Candy Polaroids and Cherie Holding Colored Cards. I began to photograph cameras when I realized how ideal they would be as subjects for prints made on the second-generation Cibachrome that became available in the late 1970s. The new material had a deep glossy black and a metallic-looking highlight—perfect for a literal representation of a camera’s black leatherette and chrome trim. I then developed a photographic method for rimming a camera with light. I had intended American Cameras as a Pop Art project, though entirely photographic in its subject and process. My intention was borne out when Ivan Karp, one of the the original master purveyors of Pop, exhibited the full set of 15 Cameras at O.K. Harris Gallery, NYC, in 1988.

Click to read an article by Mark Johnstone: “Victor Landweber's American Cameras: Referencing Art and Shifting Time,” Exposure Magazine, The Society for Photographic Education, Fall, 2015.