What is solarization in instant photography?

Solarization is a strange phenomenon where the tones of an image are reversed due to extreme overexposure, with bright areas becoming dark and dark becoming light.

In instant photography this can happen occasionally by accident, with bright parts of a photo, such as the sun, commonly appearing as black spots in the final image. The technique can also be intentionally used by drastically overexposing shots using a flash or the exposure compensation function on Lomo’Instant cameras.

Solarization in analogue photography was first discovered in the 1860s and involved the process of re-exposing an image to light during the development process. It was used by photographers such as Man Ray to create surreal images.

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