Polaroid transfers ... who's doing it and examples.

[Keith]

A guy I work with on fridays is a semi professional photographer who shoots a lot of hot rods, custom motorcycles and semi naked women for various magazines. The job we both do at this business is nothing to do with photography but we do chat about it a fair bit during the day.

I discovered that aside from all the 'bums and tits' he shoots for the mags he has some quite unusual photographic interests and has dabbled for many years in polaroid transfers and showed me a couple of examples he has on line ... one in particular of a young model was quite stunning.

He explained the process to me and told me that he uses an old polaroid camera he bought for two dollars and transfers the images to wet blotting paper! I'd never heard of this process but would love to try it and was wondering how many RFFers have done this and do you have any examples you can post?

Thanks in advance. 🙂

 

[drewbarb]

I did some of these years ago, but unfortunately I don't have any examples in digital form. Polaroid transfer was a pretty cool process, but since Polaroid is gone and the film is nearly impossible to get these days I think the point may be sadly moot.

For what it's worth, both transfer and emulsion lifting could give beautiful results, but both processes are (were?) tricky and require effectively destroying your Polaroid original- so you only get one shot at it. You could use a Daylab or similar device to reproduce images onto Polaroid film, but otherwise you had to work with originals, so either you were working in a studio or with a very elaborate field system, or you would shoot in the field but not "pull" your Polaroids until you got to a darkroom. Anyway, again, it may be just a part of photographic history, unless someone can really resurect Polaroid.

 

[kuzano]

I think the high point of that process was.....

I think the high point of that process was.....

Polaroid made a camera called the SX70, and at the time, the film that was used for artistic effect was a film called Time Zero. The feature of Time Zero film that became popular was the ability to massage and manipulate the image with various tools... chop sticks with rounded tips, popsicle sticks, etc. The special makeup of the Time Zero pack held this ability to manipulate the image for up to a day.

Time Zero film eventually was replaced by a film that did not offer the set time for this manipulation. Furthermore, I don't think the replacement Time Zero film is still made at all.

However, the Polaroid SX70 film cameras still sell for fairly high prices considering that they are limited in usage. I think they can be modified to some of the later pack films. I bought and sold them for a while, when they were more popular. I just sold one recently for $75.

Also, I think the image transfer process could be done with other films beside Time Zero. However, the Time Zero film allowed some rather interesting art effects that could then be transferred to other objects.

If I were looking for this information I would search for Polaroid Image Manipulation and/or polaroid transfer. I know that when I had some interest in this, there were many web sited for artists who were involved, both in terms of galleries and explanation of the processes.

Here is one site that has some information about the SX70/Time Zero process, and about image transfer and emulsion lifts:

http://viewingzone.com/index.html

 

[EcoLeica]

Hey Keith, never done one myself but here are the instructions to do them with the fujifilm instant pack films

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/fujifilmcreative.php?p=2

 

[Dwig]

Polaroid made a camera called the SX70, and at the time, the film that was used for artistic effect was a film called Time Zero. The feature of Time Zero film that became popular was the ability to massage and manipulate the image with various tools... chop sticks with rounded tips, popsicle sticks, etc. The special makeup of the Time Zero pack held this ability to manipulate the image for up to a day.

Time Zero film eventually was replaced by a film that did not offer the set time for this manipulation. Furthermore, I don't think the replacement Time Zero film is still made at all.
...

Actually, the original SX-70 film was the best for such manipulation. The later, faster developing Time-Zero film was difficult to work with and couldn't reproduce the effects achievable with the original SX-70 film. These SX-70 manipulations are not at all related to the OP's original inquiry.

I expeirmented with Polaroid transfers back in the day. For me, the best recieving sheet was a hot press water color paper, cold press was too soft and textured for me. You need a paper that can get wet without breaking down which is also one of the requirements of water color papers. I also found that I got the best (read: what I liked most) results if I kept the developing transfer in the dark. I sometimes pulled, peeled, and reapplied to the transfer paper in the dark and sometimes not, but once applied to the transfer paper I put it in a box for the rest of the process.