Film and Alt-Process Photography

[karst]

I miss developing my own film. It seems like there’s a resurgence of home c-41 developing lately by re-purposing sous vides. Seems nicer and easier than what I had to deal with in darkrooms a decade ago.

Has anyone here experimented with scanner photography? I know it’s not film, but I’ve always been fascinated by it and beyond a couple small tests with an old flatbed, I never dove into it in earnest.

[scttcmpbll]

Thanks! The colors are a result of experimenting with extreme heat/cold and water during the developing process.

And yup, I’ve done a bit of double exposure. Its so gratifying when it turns out nicely. I recently bought the new OneStep+ Polaroid camera which lets you do tricks like double exposure and long exposure really easily. Feels like cheating!

[baleen]

stumbled on this work the other day. visually i love it and thought the description of the process really novel but also with interesting affinities for processes found in a lot of the practices here:

“film exposed onto itself through different filtrations of light”

Joshua Bareham

[nuun]

I’m shooting on film more and more these days…

Portra 800

Portra 400

Ilford fp4 125

[joshhh]

re: film developing - a friend of mine who shoots a lot of film (his Instagram is private but worth requesting for sure; I especially like his portraits) has a good system figured out…at least it works well for Clevelanders, but many areas might have similar options:

the local camera chain does developing in-house, and though they don’t advertise it, they do processing without prints for $5/roll, which is less than half of their normal price with prints. he then takes his negatives to the public library and uses their super high res film scanner, and then can print/share from there and doesn’t have to print images he doesn’t want. finding out about this option is gonna have me shooting more film again - $5 and a few minutes with the scanner is a pretty good deal for up to 36 exposures!

something he and I talked a bit about recently also is shooting variations of an image. with film (at least for me) it is easy to be really conservative with my frame count to try to save $ on film/developing, but sometimes I get shots that are good ideas but should have been shot a little different. basically, don’t be too precious is what we decided, so if you have a good idea, maybe get 2-3 shots of it. even if you get only one or a few really good shots from a roll, it is still worth it.

a couple examples of his work:

[karst]

it is easy to be really conservative with my frame count…if you have a good idea, maybe get 2-3 shots of it.

certainly one of the most interesting parts of shooting with film is forcing this conversation into the moment of capture, rather than being an act of pure curation. that push and pull is an interesting thing to balance.

I think one of the things I had to internalize when shooting medium and large format is the willingness to walk away from some shots or let the moment pass. there were days where I’d lug around a 4x5, find something interesting, set up the whole rig, look through the glass and decide it wasn’t right, and have nothing tangible to show for the day’s trek.

[timp]

@karst
totally agree - decision making is clarified by the commitment of shooting film…
I take far less photos on film than digital, but with a much higher ratio of keepers.

I keep this explainer for any time someone asks ‘what? why do you shoot film?’

[dude]

i do not mean to derail but i just wanted to thank all for posting their works. i have the absolute fondest childhood memories in photo classes and dark rooms. it was like the only place i felt myself and still touches me to this day so it is almost therapy to see the real films.

[simondemeule]

Late to the party, but those images are breathtaking. To me the panoramic format just feels closer to human vision. I’d absolutely love having a panoramic camera one day.

[catenary]

These are taken with a Nikon F100.

I haven’t been shooting as much lately. Probably because I switched bags to a backpack so I have to be a lot more intentional about pulling my camera out (generally carry a Minolta AL-F) and having a go at it.

[stripes]

i developed + scanned my first two rolls of film last night : )
the results were great and all 20 photos came out without any issues! i used a stand developing method for both films. b+w was actually partial stand since i agitated halfway through the developer.

the whole process was really fun and easy, just time consuming. i’m really excited to continue learning!

here are the guides that i used:
b+w
color

[Hovercraft]

You did b&w semi-stand development and c-41 for the first time the same night? That’s quite ambitious for your first session. Film looks great. Which c-41 kit did you use?

[stripes]

thanks! i had been studying a lot and kind of running through the steps in my head before going for it. and it was nice to also be able to do other things during the developing. but yeah, i was just so excited when the b+w came out that i wanted to do color. i used the arista c-41 kit.

with stand developing c-41, would you be able to change the warmth of the colors at all by tweaking anything?

[Hovercraft]

with stand developing c-41, would you be able to change the warmth of the colors at all by tweaking anything?

Haven’t really tried, because color neg film is always scanned or printed–so it’s easy to manipulate color. Also not sure there’s much control available at the developing stage. You could try bleach bypass–that’s one of the more common developing variations for color neg stock. Also worth getting some color reversal film and cross processing.

[joshhh]

omg emily these are beautiful. really happy to see first time processing coming out so well! i’ve always been sort of intimidated, though mostly just due to ignorance. way to just go for it!

[Jonathan_Riley]

Wonderful images, emily

[lijnenspel]

Amazing results!

From what I remember (have never done colour before) is that colour development is not as flexible/creative as b/w, because you have less parameters to play with and need to stick to temperature, but could be totally wrong! Colour blind, so I never dared to venture into colour dev.

I loved b/w stand development a lot as well when I still had a darkroom at home. It’s relaxed, not as time consuming (as you can do other things while you wait) and the mega dynamic range is just awesome. Rodinal+hp5 was my favourite combo as you had most control over diluting it and did times up to 1,5h.

[stripes]

thanks all!
that makes sense.
i deviated slightly from that guide for b+w and did 4ml of Rodinal in 500ml of water. i might try a different mix next time to see what happens.
and yeah, when i scan my negatives there is an insane amount of control over the color. since i’m not printing from the film i guess it doesn’t really matter either way. i got a bunch of expired film, most of which is slide film, so i’m going to mix some e-6 chemicals and maybe try processing some c-41 with it and vice versa.

@joshhh you should def go for it! the mystique makes it very intimidating but after wrapping your head around some basic chemistry and having a solid outline of the steps it is really pretty straight forward! even loading the film onto the spool in the bag was easier than i was led to believe based on internet chatter.

[madeofoak]

loading the film onto the spool in the bag

i haven’t done this since college, but this was always my favorite part - there’s something so meditative and personal about it

[infovore]

oh gosh this is my least favourite part of the process. I adored printing - wafting hands under camera, watching an image come to life, working out exposure - but teenage me found loading spools in the dark terrifying: my clumsy hands the only thing between completely exposing the whole reel or not. There’s certainly a viscerality to it, though, and this whole thread is really making me want to run some film through my Yashica again soon.