Category Archives: photography

Experimenting with Film Soup

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Gave my first go at film souping now that I’m developing all my film at home. Film souping is when film gets mixed with harsh chemicals to cause discoloration and other effects. There’s a bunch of recipes for it online and I decided to go with dish soup and lime juice. I mixed these up and placed the film in the solution for several hours.

It’s important to note that with film soup, don’t send it to a lab to process without asking first. This is because a souped film can ruin chemistry and affect the development of other people’s rolls. One of the things I saw mentioned was to boil the water first, in hindsight this was a bad idea. I didn’t let the water cool down enough and it made the film incredibly thin. I noticed this as I was unspooling the film to develop it.

The results still turned out really cool. Plenty of color swirls but the heat did ruin the underlying film a bit so the original colors are way off.

I plan on doing more film soup experiments with the next batch of chemistry I mix up!

Be sure to check out my store for prints of my other film adventures.

Developing Black and White Film at Home

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When I got back into analog film, I explored the option of developing at home but was fortunate enough to find a local lab that develops color film at a good price.  I marked it down as a TODO for later when I wanted save costs if I was developing film at high enough volume.

When I went to get the first roll of black and white film developed, I was shocked that the cost was three times that of getting color developed!  After looking up the available options; to get all the supplies needed to develop BW film at home would only cost the equivalent of getting 5 rolls developed and that price would drop over time.
I ordered the JOBO Mono kit from Cinestill and picked up other supplies off Amazon. 

After watching some Youtube videos, the process was really straight forward.  BW film is more tolerant to temperature changes of the chemistry compared to color.  The part I was worried about the most was removing the film from the canister and spooling it on the reel in the dark bag so I practiced a bunch with a spoiled roll of film.

From beginning to end; gathering all the supplies, getting the chemistry to temperature, prepping the film, and doing the developing only took about 30 minutes.  I do have a couple things to improve after this first attempt but overall I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Lomochrome Purple Review

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With getting into film photography, I wanted to find ways to still explore reality different. I researched experimental films and found Lomography‘s many offerings. I decided to try their Lomochrome Purple first. The film creates other-worldly pink to dark purple hues. This was also the second film I tried after getting my dad’s old camera

I loaded the roll up and took the camera out with me on a hike, to a show, and walking around Charlotte Beach. It was really fun experimenting with it in different light conditions and pushed the film to make some amazing purples.

Other reviews have stated how changing the ISO affected the colors in the film. In my trials, the ISO setting to meter the film has little difference on the film. The difference can be adjusted with exposure and contrast controls to make the film almost identical.

I ran a test roll where I shot the same scene at 100, 200, and 400 ISO. There’s only minor difference in darkness of purples between ISO 100 and 400.

Lomochrome Purple film negatives have a green tint to it, compared to the typical orange tint that Kodak film has. I had to adjust my camera settings when scanning the film to a more cooler temperature as my normal color negative settings completely ruined the color.

This is one of the more unique films I have tried and it has quickly become one of my favorites. I have a few more rolls I plan on taking with me when I go on trips in the coming months.

Getting into Film Photography

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Growing up, the only option for photography was using film. With the digital photography entering the market, film was quickly replaced with better quality photos and not having to wait for the film to be developed. However, film has a vibe that can not be truly replicated by digital technology. As with my analog glitch art, digital technology now provides us with new ways to manipulate the medium.

My dad gave me his old Canon EOS 10S that he used while I was growing up. I’m always looking for new ways to express myself and discovered from unique filmstocks available. The ones that caught my eye the most were Lomography‘s Purple and Turquoise along with the various batches of Psychedelic Blues.

With the decline of film, options for getting it developed are limited. Fortunately there is one store left in my city that will develop film and return the negatives. I opted to explore scanning the negatives myself. The scanning part is straight forward with the right equipment. I’m using my Canon EOS R and the RF 100mm 2.8 macro lens. For my quick and dirty scanning rig, I’m using Duplos to space the film above my cell phone that is providing the backlight for the scan.

It is important to note that when scanning the film from a camera, use a custom white balance setting at the wamest temperature your camera can do. On the EOS R, I have it set to 2700k. The spacing of the film my cell phone is also important because the macro lens can pick up the individual LEDs of my phone screen.

The images are then processed in Lightroom by inverting the light curve and making slight adjustments to the color. If you have your ISO set to auto when taking the film scans, you’ll need to adjust the exposure in Lightroom as it may be too bright.

I’m going to continue to use film as an outlet for my creativity. Be sure to follow along!