Large Format Polaroids: help needed!

cyclicaljoi6 · Oct 1, 2006

Hello all, I am working at a small design agency, and we're working on a design concept for which I'd like to get some professional advice. We have been commissioned to come up with an invitation card concept for which the theme is time, and we came up with the idea of using large format polaroids--the ones which require the peeling of a protective film to trigger image formation--that contain the necessary party details. The idea is that we'll have a photographer shoot an image with the polaroid, leave the protective film untouched, and send it to the guests, who will have instructions to peel away the film and see the image appear slowly before their eyes.

Unfortunately--and this might be evident already from my language--we are quite unfamiliar with the characteristics of these polaroids, and are not sure at all whether this might work. Will the polaroid still retain its image even if say--the protective film is peeled quite a few days after the image is shot? If so, how might its image be affected or altered?

mysteryscribe · Oct 1, 2006

terri and some of the others will be your best bet on 'roid stuff. I butcher them not use them...

that said if your project doesnt work exactly as you wish compose the shot do it in digital have a bunch of copies made cut them 3 1/4 inches by 4 1/4 inches get yourself a bottle of the postem note glue from office depot... do the edges of the print then glue a bit of paper to them. Cut the paper in the right shape and fake your polaroid.

Also I think when you pull it from the camera it starts to develop.. you would have to rig it so you could get the paper out without pulling the tab and would have to have some kind of dark slide i think as well.

Philip Weir · Oct 2, 2006

Polaroid is a time/temperature medium, which simply means once you've shot the image and removed it from the carrier, it takes a certain amount of time to process correctly. If you peeled it too soon it would be too light and if left too long it would be too dark. The only way to make it work as you want is to leave it in the holder or take it out without setting the roller pressure plate depressed. The problem then is, your guest would somehow have to squeeze the chemistry evenly onto the polaroid. I think I would come up with another method.

mysteryscribe · Oct 2, 2006

see suggestion for the same effect much simpler above by ME lol...

PlasticSpanner · Oct 2, 2006

Philip Weir said:
Polaroid is a time/temperature medium, which simply means once you've shot the image and removed it from the carrier, it takes a certain amount of time to process correctly. If you peeled it too soon it would be too light and if left too long it would be too dark. The only way to make it work as you want is to leave it in the holder or take it out without setting the roller pressure plate depressed. The problem then is, your guest would somehow have to squeeze the chemistry evenly onto the polaroid. I think I would come up with another method.

Also whilst the image remains undeveloped the film part will still be sensitive to light. You'd have to find a way to keep it light tight until the customer wants to process the image.

terri · Oct 2, 2006

It's a nice concept, but I am afraid it won't work because of what has been outlined above. The minute the Polaroid film is pulled from the camera or film holder, the pressure from the camera/film holder's rollers, which the film passes through while exiting, explodes the dye pods that begins the development process. Once this development has begun there is no way to stop it. Most Polaroid films will be ready to pull apart within a couple of minutes. I fear by the time the guests peeled them apart, they would be greeted with a very dark, even blackened, image.