polaroid transfers!

now that allison's monday night soccer season is over, we had some time for a roommate date night. allison made delicious fajitas, which we ate on our new patio furniture on our deck at sunset. how romantic!

after dinner i got all my polaroid transfer stuff out and we got to work. it really is a pretty simple process and allison caught on right away.

to start, set up a tray of warm water which is used to first use to soak the watercolor paper. using a roller, squeegy the excess water and set it down next to the vivitar polaroid slide printer. once you've picked your slide, load it into the printer (which luckily for me was already loaded with polaroid film - although the package did say the film expired back in august... i couldn't tell!) then take the photo and pull out the polaroid film. count somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds, cut the film, peel it apart and place carefully face down onto the watercolor paper. with the roller, press down on it and roll 15 - 20 times, then float it, paper side down, in the warm water tray for 3-5 minutes. submerge the entire thing, peel the film off the paper and set aside overnight to dry. here are some photos of the process. and our (before drying) results!

slides are ready!

my awesome roommate allison and i started a motorcycle/photography gang and had our first day out a couple weeks ago. we took photos on our outdated film cameras with color slide film with the intention of making polaroid transfers for homemade christmas. (photos of SF for everyone!!)

sometime last year i read an article in a photography magazine about how to make polaroid transfers at home. i remembered making them in photography class back in high school and loved it, so immediately went on ebay for the machine... and a film camera... and the polaroid film, etc. another addiction day.

i made transfers for my brother and his wife at their wedding, but not much else. i had intended to make some of gigi bridge as presents, but found it very difficult to get myself to gigi alone and without transportation. enter allison (with her motorcycle, camera, and striking good looks) and michael (my beautiful new-to-me vespa) and we have a motorcycle/photography gang who can travel to the gigi bridge for a photoshoot. the day was a lot of fun and i can't wait to make the transfers!