Author Topic: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues  (Read 3753 times)

Ed Wenn

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Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« on: February 08, 2011, 12:14:22 AM »
As some of you will know, I spend quite a lot of the small amount of 'photography time' I have available in my life, fiddling with an obsolete type of film, Polaroid's Polacolor 125i peel apart. I've bleached it, stained it, lifted it, transferred it...the list goes on. Occasionally I even take a half-decent photo with it  ;D

Today I had a go at manipulating the still wet emulsion by pushing it around gently with a paper towel and my fingers to shape something interesting out of the subject matter and then scanning the print before it dried....then manipulating the prints again and re-scanning.







I like the way these turned out and I think that - given an appropriate subject matter - the technique is one I'll use again.

Chris A Fraser

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2011, 12:17:58 AM »
I really like this! The first two are great.
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Ed Wenn

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2011, 12:23:55 AM »
Thanks, Chris. I agree that the first two are better. The third one is a bit cheesy, but it's kind of striking and it's a more obvious product of the technique so i thought I'd include it here.

My wife likes the first one the best. She thinks the manipulated bits look like a tree which has exploded and showered it's branches across the image.

Mojave

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2011, 01:00:50 AM »
Well, Im going to have to disagree with you Ed and say that I just love that third one a lot. The second is my favorite, but the third pulls a close second. It is obviously manipulated in a specific way to make it look like smoke, but I dont find that cheesy at all. I think it looks awesome and what a fantastic way to manipulate the photo without using PS. I think they're all great.
mojave

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2011, 01:01:43 AM »
Oh yeah, and I also just absolutely LOVE the cracked parts at the bottom of each of the images. So wonderful!!!
mojave

Phil Bebbington

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2011, 09:45:41 AM »
1, 2 and 3 in order of preference, Ed. Great stuff, I love 'em!

Suzi Livingstone

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2011, 10:12:10 AM »
These are great, I like the 3rd one the best too.

Urban Hafner

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2011, 11:02:16 AM »
Great stuff Ed. The third one reminded me of 'The Scream', but that may be the case because I don't know much about paintings and get easily bored with them. Still it's quite a nice technique.

Urban

Francois

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2011, 03:19:09 PM »
Unbelievable! Ed actually found another way to destroy alter a Polaroid ;)
Francois

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Ed Wenn

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2011, 08:14:40 PM »
Dude, you are so missing the point. It's art. Go with it.

 ;) :D


Francois

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2011, 10:17:38 PM »
Actually, the results are quite nice. I bet that the unstained ones looked pretty blah!
(the stain gets in the cracks and makes them show-up)
Francois

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Ed Wenn

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2011, 11:31:29 PM »
Actually, it's only when the prints are drying after they've been stained that they sometimes crack. The originals didn't look too bad...just a bit flat. I shoot them in a specific way if I think I'll be dunking them in the coffee afterwards.

original_ann

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2011, 02:27:49 AM »
There's something very Van Gogh about these!  Just exquisite!

Skorj

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2011, 05:11:11 AM »
Very nice. I wonder if you can do this with other pack-film types as well? Skj.

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2011, 11:20:13 AM »
nice work ed! really interesting to see what you can do with the stuff. I like the subtle surreal feel of the first but after that comes the third. all out on that one! I bet they are much better seen in person.
hm... could be interesting to see the technique used on portraits.
/jonas

Ed Wenn

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2011, 11:42:28 AM »
Skorj: I suppose you could probably do it with any of the other colour Polaroid pack films and possibly the Fuji ones too, although I'm less convinced about the latter. Either way, it's all about getting the prints wet enough to manipulate, but not so wet that they disintegrate. The good news is that once they're wet, they can be manipulated multiple times for around an hour. Gives you plenty of scope for trying different swooshes and swirls, scanning the result and then trying again. My reservation with the Fuji films is that - based on my experience - they might start to lift off from the backing card right at the point where the emulsion is wet enough to manipulate. They seem to float off the backing really easily whereas the colour Polaroid pack films will allow themselves to get absolutely sodden and yet still cling to the backing card to some extent.

Jonas: Portraits? Might work well. I'm certainly going to try this technique out on a few of my less successful prints and see where I get to. The thing I noticed about these two prints is that the dark areas didn't lend themselves to being moved about, it was only the lighter areas...so it might not be too good with prints which don't have large light areas. Although having said that, if we're talking protraits it should work on light-skinned faces well enough

Suzi Livingstone

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2011, 12:26:03 PM »
There's something very Van Gogh about these!  Just exquisite!

Yes, Van Gogh's Starry Night crossed my mind as well!

Francois

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #17 on: February 09, 2011, 04:49:07 PM »
Portraits? Might work well.
I think we all want to see a self-portrait... ed with wild looking hair  ;D
That should be quite a sight!  :-X
Francois

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #19 on: February 09, 2011, 08:08:19 PM »
yep, I'm all for the first one too.
Looks just about right, not too strong, not too subtle.

Just right!

That's a winner Ed. :) :)

Miller

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Re: Polaroid 125i Manipulation: The Quest Continues
« Reply #20 on: February 09, 2011, 08:34:50 PM »
The 3rd for me especially due to the complimented colour tones...

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