dimanche 9 octobre 2005

Polaroid Image Transfer Peel apart... Press together... and Play Despite it's popularity over the past decade, image transfer is not a new process. It took Polaroid more than 25 years to realise the commercial potential of a chance discovery by one of their employees who accidentally left a "peel-apart" negative face down on a lab workbench. Picking it up later, he found the negative's image magically transferred to the work surface as a positive. It seems strange to think that further experimentation with this "image transfer" technique was discouraged by Dr. Edwin Land, the inventor of instant film, but many creative photographers have since been finding out for themselves what "instant art" photography is all about. Polaroid has made image transfer available to the hobbyist by packaging a kit of everything needed to create these little works of art. For around $49.00 you get a 40-page book of instructions and inspiring illustrations in addition to a twin-pack of Polacolor 669 Instant Film, plastic tray, 6 inch soft-rubber brayer (hand roller) and a quantity of 7x5 inch sheets of thick cartridge paper suitable for the process. [Check your country dealership for specific details, pricing and availability.] You also need a Polaroid film holder. These cost between $100 and $300+, depending on size and camera fitting, and attach to most medium- and large-format cameras. If you don't have a suitable camera, you can buy either the Daylab 35N or 120 model (there are also examples of the original model Vivitar Instant Slide Printer available second-hand if you look around carefully... The Vivitar Slide Printer is an inexpensive daylight enlarger which projects a 35mm slide onto Polacolor Type 669 film. Operation is by 4 x C-type batteries powering a built-in flash exposure which is adjustable, to a degree, by a sliding scale). Exposure methods There are three ways of creating image transfers. By using a 5x4 or 10x8 inch studio / field camera you can work directly with Polaroid film and immediately transfer the shot you have just taken to the receptor material. The receptor can be anything, as long as it has an absorbent surface. .. paper and textiles are the obvious choices for the photographer-artist. However, working directly has disadvantages in that a posed or action shot, while difficult enough to photograph on large format, then has to go through the hit-and-miss process of being transferred. Some subjects can eat up a complete pack of eight shots before you realise that the colours, contrast, lighting or composition don't suit the manipulated medium... which gets quite expensive. The second method is to use the Daylab 35 instant slide printer. This enables you to use stock transparencies as many times as you want without having to reshoot a subject. The third method, and my favourite, is to make image transfers in the darkroom with your enlarger enlarger. A Polaroid film holder has to be accurately positioned in the projected area of the enlarger's light source, and a film positive or transparency focused onto the holder's darkslide - a piece of white paper slipped into place helps to focus and frame accurately in the dark. The Polaroid Image Transfer step-by-step guide gives the recommended exposure times, f/stops and colour filtration for both diffusion colour head and condenser enlargers using various film formats. This guide is quite straight forward and describes how to transfer onto dry surfaces (for a sharper image), or dampened absorbent surfaces for a softer, water-colour painting effect. The receptor sheet - an artist's regular type of paper - has to be dampened before the exposed Polaroid negative is pressed onto it. By not following the normal recommended development time for the Polaroid film of 90 seconds (times vary with 690, 669, 59 or 809 films) you peel apart the film pack after only 10 seconds and quickly place it in contact with the art paper receptor for the remaining 90 seconds. This "peeling apart" stage can be slightly messy, but it isn't too tricky, because the caustic developing agents may cause problems such as ruined images to slightly burnt fingers. Persevere though, practice and wear protective gloves and glasses, because a little bit of magic will happen in front of your eyes. It's best to place the receptor paper in a dish of water to soak whilst you're are exposing the original Polaroid film. The paper can get too dry if it is squeegeed first. As soon as you have pulled the film out of it's holder, cut the pull tab and chemical pod off the backing-paper close to the print's edge. This is optional because although it removes some of the distinctive border associated with this type of printing - what Polaroid call their "signature" - it does help achieve a higher success rate... and at two or three dollars or more per shot in kit form you'll want to minimise wasted attempts. Using the soft-rubber roller, apply repeated light, even pressure to the negative / paper sandwich for the remaining 90 seconds period. Then, with the utmost care, pick up one corner of the negative and slowly peel the sandwich apart... and I do mean slowly! If you rip off the negative pack too quickly - say in a couple of seconds - the colour dyes will stick to the negative in ragged patches... so take between 15 and 20 seconds over this tricky stage. The advantage of using your enlarger to make image transfer prints is that you can crop the original slide, alter the enlarger's colour filtration in any way for even greater impact, or impressionistic effects, and also dodge and burn the projected image just as you would a normal print. Using a large format camera or the Daylab apparatus limited colour corrections and manipulations are possible plus some exposure changes... but the greatest creative manipulations are possible and simply achieved, with repeatable results, under the enlarger. Artistic licence There are basically few limits to what you can do to a stock transparency - including those old Agfa Dia-Direct black and white slide material as well as Polaroid's own Polapan 35mm films. Receptor materials and their post-development treatments are open to a number of artistic manipulations which can be studied in books such as "Polaroid Transfers - A Complete Visual Guide to Creating Image and Emulsion Transfers" by Kathleen Thormod Carr, "Creative Photo Printmaking" by Theresa Airey and the downloadable pdf "Polaroid Image Transfers - Tools and Techniques" e-book by Holly F. Dupré. With any art-photo techniques, post production manipulations include, but are not exclusive to lead pencil, wax or pastel crayon, paper collage, water-colour, gouache, oil paint and even another image transfer applied to the print's surface. So you really do have complete artistic licence in what you do... and that's why you should try a Polaroid Image Transfer kit... creative photography will take on a new meaning once you try this exciting art form. 11:03:23 PM    comment []