Digital photography can be a wonderful thing, as we all know (who’d have imagined, not so long ago, that we would be able to capture very high quality images and high definition video on our very pocketable phones?). Although initially reluctant, once I’d embraced the new technology back in the early noughties, I thought I’d left behind the days of waiting in anticipation for my photos to return from the lab, either prints or transparencies, not knowing for sure how they’d look (I had engaged in home developing/printing of black and white but it never became a major part of my hobby). Being able, now, to see instantly whether I’d got the shot or not and having the facility to edit and print at home, why on earth would I want to return to the ‘bad old days’?
Curiosity? Maybe. Nostalgia? Again, a possibility. A gentle nudge from my film-shooting Son? A desire to try my late Cousin’s old Minolta slr camera? Two more likely reasons. Most probably a little bit of all these things got me once again looking more seriously into the world of film back in early 2020. I’ve been down the rabbit hole ever since.
One decision I made early on, though, was to try and minimise the ecological footprint of processes involved in my rediscovered pastime. To this end I decided to essentially stick to shooting black and white film to limit the number of harmful chemicals involved. The lab I used to send my films to used the relatively benign developer Xtol for processing the rolls, so that was a further step in that direction.
Late 2022 brought another change. Sadly my go-to lab, that I’d started using back in the 90s, went the way of so many smaller companies in recent times. At this point I decided to dig out my old developing tanks and start processing my own.
In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Along with home developing, an eco-friendly homemade developer seemed like a good idea, too, Caffenol fitting the bill nicely. To date I am still fine tuning the recipe I use, but I’m getting some excellent results along the way. Onward and upward..
All good fun.
Reading and subscribing to “Faffy’s Fotos” is free, but if you would like to make a donation to Ancient and Sacred Trees Community it would be very much appreciated. Each gift helps plant a tree. Thank you.
Hi Ralph,
You may have already come across this article which Ian Hill mentioned, but I thought of it on reading this. It sounds like you may have many adventures ahead.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward-Maughan-Carr/publication/341517376_Stare_into_the_Caffenol_to_Reveal_Your_Future_A_Sustainable_Vision_for_Analogue_Photography/links/5ec524f6a6fdcc90d68637d3/Stare-into-the-Caffenol-to-Reveal-Your-Future-A-Sustainable-Vision-for-Analogue-Photography.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Eco friendly developer, how cool! I think there’s a real return to analogue. I think it’s the tangible materiality of it in part. It’s easy to snap a gazillion photos but the mechanics of analogue is a whole different process. Thanks for sharing with us. 🙏🏻