goyablog

A box from Freestyle Photo came via FedEx today, which meant that the photo fixer I ordered arrived, which meant that I could try to develop the paper negatives I exposed yesterday in the Anyway35 pinhole camera I made. Granted, I have never developed anything in my life and didn’t even know what a paper negative is until a few days ago. But, TGFTW (Thank God For The Web). After a bit a googling and great advice and encouragement from a real photographer, Chris Keeney, I decided to experiment. The Anyway35 Pinhole is designed to take 3.5×3.5″ paper negatives. The first thing I learned is that it’s hard to cut accurately 5×7 photo paper to 3.5×3.5 in a darkroom.
Lesson #1: build template for paper cutting and make it a little bigger than 3.5x.3.5
With untested pinholes and photo papers the science of exposure times and focus and framing is turned into a crap shoot, albeit an educated by trial-and-error crap shoot. So, I set up a shot that would be in sun and shade at the same time and have differently-textured objects at different depths of field. I also did a shot of the same scene after it clouded over.
Lesson #2: 30-40 seconds in afternoon sun; 120 seconds in cloudy; shade exposure time not yet determined, but I’m guessing at least 3 minutes.
Lesson #3: Developing film/prints takes patience and a modicum of precision (unless you what to pass off mistakes as “artsy”); i.e., fix and wash your prints better!
Lesson #3 was learned when I forgot/was too lazy to double check fixing and wash times. I woefully underestimated the length of time and the amount of agitation necessary for fixing and washing. As a result, I got a mess of spots and streaks on my negative.
Lesson #4: Developing paper negatives “Caffenol” (Folger’s instant coffee crystals, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, Vitamin C, and water) works and it doesn’t smell like “grim death” as one guy put it. Normal developing chemicals smell worse.
I want to do contact prints from the negatives (the positive “prints” you see below were produced by scanning into Photoshop and inverting the image), but need a 15w bulb and some plate glass. I also need to be more careful adhering the photo paper to my camera back, using less adhesive. Sticky gunk was left on the back of the negatives and that’ll mess up a contact print. Patient rubbing got the gunk off (afraid to take Goo Gone to it), but there are better ways,.
Lesson #5: Digital photography is FAR more efficient and instantly gratifying and easier and everything else, but this low-fi alternative process photography is interesting and gratifying in its own alchemical way. I’m not even considering it photography per se; rather, it’s playing with the play of light on material surfaces and with substances to produce images (I guess that’s what “photo-graphy” means…). Of course, Sara has known this for ages with her analog cameras, but to build a camera from scratch and develop the exposure you took with it goes even further. Yeah, I screwed up the developing, but I got some images. It worked — the Christmas gift tin I made a pinhole camera out of and the Folger’s Crystals mixed with Washing Soda and Ascorbic Acid produced images on paper where there had been none:

#1 (35-second exposure in sun and shade):

#2 (120-second exposure in mostly cloudy):

Browsing through Vimeo turned up this pretty neat Tokyo-inspired video:

Rapid Eye Movement from POWSKII on Vimeo.