Photo-Transformation

In 1973 the Polaroid company gave Lucas Samaras an SX-70 camera that produced a new kind of photograph— what came to be known simply as a Polaroid. It featured the so-called integral system, in which the photograph is developed and fixed without the intervention of the pho-tographer. While watching the image forming, Samaras determined that the film’s image-receiving layer remained highly malleable for several minutes after it is ejected from the camera. Taking advantage of this feature, he manipulated this layer in a variety of ways to transform his images, blurring photography, drawing, and painting. A marvel of engineering and chemistry, instant integral films can contain as many as 20 layers. Because of this structural complexity, there is often little a conservator can do to repair a work once it has been damaged.