Crimson and Gold

Si Holley
Fort Collins, Colorado
e-mail: siholley1@juno.com

Family Portrait - Polaroid image transfer

all images © Si Holley

My experience with alternative processes began while snooping around on Yahoo in the photography category. I stumbled upon some pinhole photography websites and noticed the soft-focus and dreaminess of the images. I made a few pinhole cameras from foam-core board and used Ilford multigrade IV paper for the exposures and the contact prints.

One of those pinhole websites had a link to Kathleen Carr's site and that is where I first saw the Polaroid processes. Her site led me to Marek's site. The locations where some of Marek's images were taken sounded familiar to me. I was pleasently surprised to find out we live in the same town. I haven't used the pinhole cameras much since then. Again, the soft qualities of the image transfers is what I like. I bought a Daylab II slide printer and a 4x5 base.

I shoot mostly florals and some architecturals on Fuji Sensia and Provia slide film with natural light. The Arches hot press paper is standard, but I have success with the cold press when I want even more of the look of a painting. Lately I've been scanning some image transfers and printing them out as 5x7 and 8x10. I have an Epson 1270 that uses lightfast dye/pigment inks and an output size up to 13x19. There are many nice watercolor papers available for printing as well as some canvas.

"Family portrait" is a 4x5" image transfer, "Sunflowers" is a composite of three 3x4" transfers, and "Takamine" and "Sconce" are 4x5" transfers. All four image transfers are made on Arches 140# hot press watercolor paper and enhanced with prismacolor pencils.

last updated: 2/28/2001 ... ... other web pages by Marek Uliasz ...