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November 09, 2004
failed Polaroid transfer experiment
I saw someone do a Polaroid transfer on Crafters Coast to Coast the other day. That show is seriously bad for me to watch. I found myself shopping for glass-fusing kilns the other night. Anyway, back to Polaroid transfers, it looked so easy on the show. All she did was peel the sheet off too soon, then let the emulsion or whatever soften over steam for a few minutes before slapping it down on some paper. Yeah, yeah, you need a specific type of camera and film. Well, my i-zone camera says Polaroid on it, and, oh yeah, here's a packet of expired sticker film. Great.
So, it's no surprise that I couldn't get this to work. Maybe there is a way to do it, but it seems to be unknown to Google. I tried a few things. Most variations shared the first few steps: take the picture, let it develop (or not, tried that too), cut the edges off, and let sit in warm water until the layers soften up.
i-zone film seems to be made up of at least 3 layers. They will be stuck to each other in different ways depending on whether the picture is developed or not. There is a backing layer, an emulsion or something layer, and a thin plastic/acetate layer. Right when you take the picture, the emulsion layer seems to be stuck to the back. If you cut the edges off, you can easily pull the acetate away. The emulsion won't come off unless you douse it in hot water. More to the point, no picture develops. If you let the picture develop before cutting the edges off, the emulsion seems to stick to the acetate. It requires soaking to get the layers apart. The emulsion layer is fragile. You can rub it off really easily. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to stick to anything. I would smoosh it on the paper, and then try to peel the acetate off, only to get an icky gray mess. I wrecked four or five pictures and gave up.
If you happen to know of a way to get i-zone film to transfer, please email me.
Posted under Experiments at November 9, 2004 12:12 AM
Comments
just stumbled across your blog recently... anywho... you don't want to transfer izone film because the chemicals are pretty toxic. the old-school film (ie. 669) are made to be not so toxic and thus can be transferred.
Posted by: fert at January 21, 2005 07:29 PM
Thanks for the tip. I really didn't expect it to work. It was more of a lark to try it just in case, since I don't intend to buy a Polaroid camera. I did make sure to wear gloves. I imagine most all photo chemicals are probably nasty.
Posted by: Maitreya at January 21, 2005 10:57 PM
you can get an old passport camera to do stuff like that. its 669 film, which doesnt have the chemicals in it, and also doesnt have the plastic film over the photo. and since its a passport camera it takes two pictures at once, side by side, wallet sized.
i worked in a photo labs for 5 years, and in the past two everyone started going digital, so you may be able to find these cameras really cheap somewhere.
Posted by: jessee at February 24, 2005 12:27 PM
yeah, it's not possible with the common kinds of polaroid film nowadays, you have to have a special kind that uses a gel imulsion layer inside, I went through the same thing you did years ago. :(
Posted by: Anonymous at April 10, 2005 11:02 PM