In earlier posts I talked about embracing grain for the character it introduces and thus the use of 35mm film. In another post, I talked about my experiments with alternative developers, specifically using tea and coffee. The use of tea and coffee was inspired by my grandfather, who had been a prisoner of war between about 1916 – 1920. When drafted into the army he was studying chemistry at Brno University in what is now the Czech republic, but in his time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was wounded and then captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia. During that time, he made a pinhole camera and shot some photographs. I have wondered how he was able to make the film, then develop and print the pictures. One step in the process is the composition of the developer and more specifically, a solution that could be made with the limited resources at hand.
I figured they would have either tea or coffee, so I have been working with both of these. The photographs in this series have all been developed with [instant] coffee, so called caffenol. There are other benefits in using coffee as the development agent, as first: it is easy to make “on demand”, so I have no waste resulting from unused developer, and second, it is more environmentally friendly, meaning I can pour the used solution down the drain, rather than take it over to the hazardous waste dump.
All these pictures were shot with my Canon AE-1 using Ilford HP5 film. While the film is black & white, I scan the negatives in colour so that I can capture the colouration of the developer (if any).
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