LF Polaroid characteristics: professional advice needed!

[cyclicaljoi6]

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?

[Dave Brown]

Sorry, but it won't work. The Polaroids require the use of a Polaroid back (such as the 545) to spread the chemicals that develop the print.

Another possibility you might consider is having the invitations printed on "printing out paper" and not fixed. Rather than developing before the guests eyes, the image would slowly fade. Apparently Yoko Ono used this trick to announce one of her shows.

[Pat Kearns]

Another suggestion on the polaroid concept but is more labor intensive on your part. First, have your photographer photograph and process the polaroid of the details as you originally wanted. With with some Post It Note Cement glue the print to some stiff black paper cut in the design of a polaroid sheet pack. The quests will then peel apart the two to reveal the details of the party. I'm surprised that you are a design center and didn't come up with that idea. My $250 fee can be deposit into my paypal account. :D