Polaroid Transfers

 

General Photography

It is a matter of personal taste - as pretty much anything related to photography - but Polaroid transfers are probably the watercolours of photography. And this is not necessarily meant to be a compliment. Done well, Polaroid transfers are … well, let’s say interesting. Take, for example, Melinda Carvalho’s gallery. Those are some very good examples of Polaroid transfers. It’s easier to find plenty of not-so-good ones. One of the main problems of Polaroid transfers could be that most people seem to be too interested in the technique itself rather than in the actual result. Means they show you some Polaroid transfer and expect a “Wow! Cool!” - regardless of the actual photographic merit of the photo. It’s like seeing the usual beach-lighthouse watercolour. But maybe I’m being unfair, maybe you could say that about many artistic techniques. Anyway, this is not to deny that Polaroid transfers are actually quite tricky to do. It’s a steep and expensive learning curve. If you want to do your own check out Holly Dupre’s (free) online manual (downloadable as pdf file).