Polacolor Image Transfer 1980-83

John Reuter was one of the earliest artists to utilize Polacolor Image Transfer. Taught the technique by artist and friend Rosamond Purcell in 1978, Reuter began shooting 8×10 in 1980. As he had with his SX-70 work Reuter used the Image Transfer process as a starting point of combining photography, painting and collage. For much of this series he made use of an airbrush to apply the paint, generally isolating the figure and changing the context of the original scene. The early images were photographed with a Deardorf camera and 300mm lens, but by the end of the series Reuter switched his image capture to a Panasonic VHS video camera. With this video system, Reuter would shoot a sequence of images and freeze playback. He would then render the image by photographing it off of the video monitor. In a sense this was his earliest digital imagery.