Here are the first 4 images in a new series I’m working on called, “Lifted Dreams.” Each image consists of two or more Polaroid emulsion lifts on original alcohol ink paintings. So far there are 25+ images in the series that I’ll be sharing on this newsletter. This set of images came about because I was craving a photography project that didn’t involve computers or digital images and I thought a Polaroid camera might be a good place to start. When I finally got the camera, I hated it.
The model I bought was a newly manufactured, “Now+” and although I was super excited for the novelty of getting a retro print in my had immediately after taking a shot, I was less than thrilled with the resulting photos. For reference, a lot of what I have shot for personal projects over the past 15 years has been with fairly high-end full-frame cameras with a set of fairly high-end lenses. Camera set-ups like these produce crisp, high-resolution digital files that look amazing as long as you nail your composition and exposure. Polaroid photos obviously don’t share any of those traits when it comes to image quality. I shot a pack of film through my new toy and that was that. It sat on my shelf for months and the photos ended up in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. I was not impressed. Looking back now, I see that I wasn’t embracing Polaroid photos for what makes them special.
A few months later I decided to give Polaroid another shot and needed to come up with a project. While brainstorming, I vaguely remembered reading about someone who had experimented with burning their Polaroid prints. I thought that sounded like a fun little Saturday, so I drove around town, shot 10 photos, and then rushed home to see what a little fire would do to my fresh prints. The results of this experiment were quite nice in my opinion (See them here), and the gears started turning. I noticed that layers of the image were separating with the heat and it made me wonder if this same effect could be achieved in a more controlled way.
After a bit of research, I stumbled upon the method of emulsion lifting, which absolutely blew my mind. I immediately started experimenting. One thing led to another and I ended up with the images shared in this post.
This has been one of the most rewarding photography projects I’ve attempted and it has renewed love of photography exponentially. Thanks for reading!
I’ll be sharing the rest of the images in future posts!
Lifted Dreams v.1
I like that, Dan