Film development

Since I haven't been working (but am looking for work) and am getting caught up on other house projects and the psychological weight of the last job is gone, I've been sorting out what I'm doing photographically. I have a bunch of old medium format cameras that I love but I've had to send the film out to get processed/scanned and that's a break in the continuity that sends me back to digital.

I found a good Epson scanner on craigslist for little money and I traded a guy a couple of six packs of beer for a full set of film developing equipment and chemicals. I realized I'd been avoiding doing the developing, though, because I have to do it either in the kitchen or the bathroom and I don't trust having chemical residue of various toxicities when I'm done. I stumbled across a reference to Caffenol - a developer made with instant coffee, ascorbic acid, and washing soda - and over the last week I collected the required ingredients. Yesterday I tried it. And it worked!





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