Since my return to film photography I’ve quickly found out how much money I could spend on the stuff, especially given the variety out there now! And that’s fine really – it’s part of the hobby and makes beautiful images that can’t be erased with a magnet or a corrupted drive. However, with my annual …
Low Cost Bulk Film Loading for Skinflints – By Robert Wilcox Read More
I’ve mostly had pretty good to medium luck using seaweed, bladderwrack specifically, as a film developer, but I live in Reno Nevada on the western edge of the Great Basin, bladderwrack for seaweed developer is just not that readily available out here.
I thought that maybe I should try to make developer out of something a little more ubiquitous than bladderwrack. Being on the edge of the Great Basin (near the foothills of the Sierras) sagebrush grows abundantly in these parts, it’s in vacant lots, in peoples yards and covers whole hillsides as you get away from the center of town.
For nearly a quarter century, I’ve tested every digital camera that crossed my path to see how well it handled infrared photography. Some didn’t pass muster, like my beloved Minolta Dimage A1. Its APO zoom lens’s optical design and internal coatings threw a bright “hot spot” into every IR photo. And the problem would have persisted even if I removed the camera’s “hot mirror” to allow hand-held infrared shooting.
Human vision is sensitive only to a small part of the entire colour spectrum. Infrared photography allows us to visualise reflected light that is otherwise invisible to us and opens another dimension for photographers to experiment with. The following outlines my experience getting started with digital infrared and the results that ensued.
Recently, I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to a project that was started by Dave Whenham (@elland_in) and John Martin (@TEMLIGHTIMAGES). The project is passing a homemade 4×5 pinhole camera around some invited contributors, who each use the camera and submit the results as content for a zine.
When I agreed to do this, about a year ago, it all seemed a bit far in the future. As the camera landed on my doorstep things got real, very quickly. I’d had a year to work out my plan of attack and I’d put it into the back of my mind. The first weekend I wasted by being frozen with panic. I was going to look like a real fool.
In a fit of JFDI (Just Flippin’ Do It) I loaded a couple of sheets of Adox CHS 100 II film and shot a frame of a Kraken Rum Bottle and a vase of plastic flowers.
I am not a person, with whom the term “brilliant” is associated, however I do have the odd flash of inspiration. This came in the form of not having any Kodak D23 made up or chemicals to do so. The only developer that I’d got was Ilford PQ Universal. I also had an unopened box of Fotospeed ST10 Sepia Toner. What if I tried a reversal process using the Sepia Toner?
The theory goes that you develop the film in a strong dilution of paper developer, then use the toner from the ST10 kit and then use the bleach from the ST10 kit you will carry out reversal of the image.
