Polaroid Techniques- The Emulsion Lift

The second technique unique to this kind of polaroid film, which I alluded to in my previous post, is the emulsion lift. This technique lifts the very fine layer of chemicals from the backing paper, leaving a thin membrane with the original image still on it, which can then be affixed to a multitude of surfaces. The instructions for this technique can be found at the following link:

http://www.alternativephotography.com/process_emulsionlifts.html

This technique may be particularly useful for my project, dealing as I am with the idea of the fragile and the solid and conflating these oppositions. I plan next to photograph something particularly solid, for example, a brick wall, and then attempt an emulsion lift, again playing with the idea of the solid and the fragile. As with the image transfer, this technique is not particularly reliable, the results given can very wildly or fail to work at all. Another drawback of this technique is that images with large areas of black can be very difficult to "lift" from their backing, which means it is unlikely that I can use this for many of my photographs at night. This may take my project in a different direction entirely as I may have to rethink the way I photograph the objects, or begin to look at alternative subjects which are still linked to my original idea.

The image can also be distorted when placing it onto a different surface, either purposefully, placing it onto a textured surface such as a rock, or accidentally, as the membrane tends to shift and dry differently. The images below are two examples of this taken from the websites http://www.polanoid.net/ and http://http://www.alternativephotography.com// . The images yielded often look similar to the work of the painter Francis Bacon, distorted and twisted, particularly with human subjects. This may be an interesting subject to study.