Breaking Film

For some reason I’ve been procrastinating about this week’s roll of film. I just wasn’t finding the motivation to develop it.  Yesterday Jake took a spin with Caffenol; today Beth and I were home alone with time to kill and an empty kitchen. A little home chemistry seemed in order.

The ingredients are simple: cheap instant coffee, Vitamin C powder, and washing soda. Although they took a bit of work to get, my supplies of soda and C should last for years. The scale is a simple digital kitchen one ($20) which also has postal uses. The thermometer and timer are cheap kitchen items. The only specialized equipment is the developing tank.

I loaded the film in the tank. Beth measured, mixed, and developed under my supervision. All of the ingredients are non-toxic and can be dumped down the sink after use. We did use a standard photographic fixer, which should be saved for re-use and not released to the environment. We used the Delta-STD recipe, halved to make 500cc of deveoper.

In less than half an hour from start to finish, we had images. The negatives are a bit thin, and I’m having a dust issue. I blame that on loading the reel with one hand in a cast.  I’m happy though. We may need to perfect this technique.