New Work - Maternity Shoot for Polaroid Transfer Originals

Commissioned Polaroid Transfer 2011

This may be one of my final Polaroid transfers. After stocking up on 669 film after Polaroid announced they would cease to produce it, people would ask me what I was going to do when it all ran out. Well, I have had a good long run with Polaroid processes, and I like change. If you do something for too long you run the risk of falling into a rut. I decided that when my 669 was gone, I would either stop and do something else or I would find a new way to make transfers and emulsion lifts. I will write more on what I have decided to do, soon. But for now, I wanted to share that I am down to one box of 669 (!!). And in the past month I have had a very exciting time using up my expired film. It has not been without incident, though, since the chemistry has been acting up. Everything I have made in the past year or so has had sepia toned streaks that no matter how many times I cleaned my rollers, I could not stop. While part of the ArtsPeak Studio Tour this year, I gave demos on transfers and emulsion lifts. I had 6 hours straight two days in a row to work. At this point, I had already shot a maternity session, that I was hired to do because the mom-to-be was enamoured with a transfer (you can see it below) I had given to my midwife, who is also her midwife. She commissioned me to make two transfers. But that weekend I began to wonder if I was going to be able to fulfill her request. But with the time to work I turned panic into a solution with some trial and error. I let the transfers that I had made dry, then I put them back in water and rubbed off the brown staining with the tips of my fingers. It worked remarkably well. And it made me feel really good that after 10 years of working with this process I was able to learn something new, something that would also save the day on this commission. Phew! I am so glad I could make this image...

The inspiration for the above transfer was an image I made if my dear friend, Cristina, when she was pregnant with her son, Francis. I think this was taken in 2004, but my memory is not as good as it used to be...