#Darkroom soak photoflow full#
#Darkroom soak photoflow series#

With the second print the aim to was make a very dynamic image showing the motion of developing liquid on the surface of the paper, at the expense of any fine detail. The first work was fairly light on washing soda, thus forming broadly static patterns showing the texture of the vitamin-c powder and coffee granules, though there were some limited areas of runoff creating dynamic swirling patterns The goal was really to just do more of the same but on a larger scale.

#Darkroom soak photoflow full#

With the initial experiments successfully completed it was time to try some larger scale work with full sheets of 8×10 paper. Finally the way the coffee became a sticky mass on the surface of the paper actually caused it to act as a chemigram resist, as well as a developer at the same time! It was surprising to see how the coffee + vitamin-C alone were fairly weak, but when they combined they became stronger than the sum of the parts. In particular the inability of the paper to absorb sufficient washing soda solution was a key limiting factor in the results. The results obtained were partially aligned with the initial expectations of the process but, as always when experimenting, there were surprises. The results were fairly similar to the first test, but with less development of the surrounding paper, as would be expected due to lack of run-off. The process was repeated, but without pouring washing soda over the ingredients, just relying in that initially absorbed by the paper. The areas of most intense development were along the edges where the coffee and vitamin-C had mixed initially, and then in the broad areas of run-off which had well mixed caffenol There is just a slight gray speckling effect where the coffee had a very limited action on the silver halides. Given the limited water holding capacity of the paper, the areas with great concentrations of coffee granules had ironically developed the least. It turned out that the instant coffee had formed quite a sticky sludge which had adhered well to the paper.

The surprise came when I decided to wash off the ingredients. This image shows the run-off is developing the paper quite efficiently after just a minute or so: So to try and intensify things I used a syringe to squirt on some more washing soda, which made the vitamin-C fizz very nicely. The washing soda is critical as an accelerator, without it coffee/vitamin-C are far too slow. I figured that since the paper was quite lightweight and moderately glossy, it was probably not able to absorb very much of the washing soda solution thus limiting how much caffenol can form. After a minute or so it is possible to see hints of development along the edges where the paper is going dark grayĪfter 5 minutes the developed areas didn’t appear to be getting any darker. It was soaked in warmed (~25 C) washing soda solution then some coffee was sprinkled on, followed by some vitamin-C powder.

This is done in normal lighting conditions so the paper is universally and totally exposed and should gradually turn black where the caffenol has formed.įor this first test I used off-cuts of some outdated ~|40 year old) Ilford FB paper approx 5×4 inches in size. The theory is that when the coffee/vitamin-c hits the wet paper it reacts with the washing soda to form caffenol on the surface. The vitamin-C powder can just be poured or sprinkled onto the paper. The granules of instant coffee can be placed individually on the paper where needed, or simply sprinkled in an adhoc manner. The first step was to make a solution of washing soda and water and thoroughly soak the sheets of paper in it. The coffee and vitamin-C are the developing agents while the washing soda acts as an accelerator.

#Darkroom soak photoflow series#

So began a new series of chemigram experiments without using any kind of resist at all.Ĭaffenol is made by mixing washing soda crystals, vitamin C, instant coffee and optionally some iodized salt. Caffenol is not just for film, it can be used for developing paper too and it occurred to me one day that instead of mixing up the caffenol in a jug, it might be interesting to just let the caffenol ingredients mix and react directly on the paper. Meanwhile for film processing at home I have been using my Caffenol-C-H-UK recipe almost exclusively as the developer. In the work so far I’ve used various different substances as resists to control the action of the developer and fixer on the paper, thus influencing the pattern of the light & dark regions. Over the past year or two I’ve done a bunch of experiments with the Chemigram process and even combined it with the Lumen process.