Polaroid SX-70 Manipulation

The manipulation technique is done with an old Polaroid camera (this type is no longer manufactured) and SX-70 Polaroid film. The slow-processing film gives me about 5-minutes to move the emulsion around after taking the picture, using everything from knitting needles to toothpicks as tools.

Polaroid Image and Emulsion Transfers

Polaroid Transfers are "cross-over" techniques because they give a photograph the appearance of a painting or watercolor. For the image transfer, I use an enlarger to project a transparency onto a peel-apart Polaroid print. Before the dyes from the negative have completely transferred to the positive print, I peel the print, and lay the negative onto watercolor paper, which is then pressed, heated, and "transferred." The emulsion transfer is similar except that the positive side of the print is used. The print emulsion is heated and floated off the backing, then placed on the paper surface. Both techniques create one of-a-kind original images.

Color Reversals

"Color Reversals" are unpredictable and selective -- it only works well on a few images. The technique is basically the same as making a print from a color negative, except, I use the slide, instead. Unlike the well-known "cross-processing," this manipulation is done during printing, rather than processing.

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