PJ’s Blog

Or : An orchid by any other name would be a polaroid transfer… (Well, you get my drift…) This week’s images represents the other technique I’m currently experimenting with. The process is very simple and this time it’s both in theory and practice : a polacolor image is taken (this one is type 59) and peeled apart before the end of the normal development time. The negative is applied to a wet watercolor sheet of paper, and the image transfers to the watercolor paper… (there is a description of the process on the Polaroid Website.) Now, the final results depends on many things : the exact time of peeling apart, the wetness of the paper, the texture of the paper, (and to some extent, I think, the alignment of the stars…), and a good dose of luck. Which means that every image is highly unique, and in fact is the only copy of the image, since at the end of the whole thing you are left with no usable negative to make a second image. This is why many practitioners of image transfers use original transparencies and duplicate them on Polacolor film. This allows for making more than one copy of each image, even though each copy will be slightly different in tone and details. It’s not to everyone’s liking, but I happen to like it ! ^_^