Polaroid Transfer Art

I started to shoot that old abandoned bar just by lucky accident. For me it was the most interesting object in the little town of Severance in Weld county, far more attractive than the new "Bruce's" bar serving "famous Rocky Mountain Oysters".

The slide was quite bad but I used it for my first image transfer. After many trials with Daylab slide printer and a lot of wasted Polaroid film I got a more or less satisfactory result. I realized that this unpredictable technique had a great potential for showing old buildings and other structures. I started to drive around in Larimer and Weld counties looking for old buildings, ghost farms and ghost towns, abandoned churches. The Severance Inn picture was a beginning of my lost Colorado series and my more serious involvement in Polaroid image transfers. A focus of my photography shifted from a natural landscape to a cultural landscape.

I was returning back to Severance several times. I had occasion to shoot a front of the old inn at a sunset: nice slides, but not the same character and feelings in image transfers. The building doesn't exist any more.

The cabin or rather just walls was located on Monument Gulch Road near Dickerson Ranch west of Fort Collins, CO. I haven't visited the place since December 1997 when I shot this picture.

This is one of my favorite image transfers. I have also tried to do this transfer using the same slide and 8x10" Polaroid film, but was unsuccessful in achieving similar effect.

I still use the same 10 year old Daylab printer with more accessories, so I can work with a wider selection of film formats including 8x10" and SX-70 film. For some reason, I don't use very often the 3-1/4 x 4-1/4" film which works with a default Daylab base. I don't think that have achieved any special artistry in making emulsion transfers, but it was a lot of fun.

• First Emulsion Transfers
• Velvia Period of My Photography