Homebrew Photolab
Local legend has it that Lake Ontario is so polluted a bucket of it can be used as a weak film developer, but who knew safe, chemical-free film processing chemicals were sitting in my kitchen cupboards? Apparently innocuous materials like coffee, tea, vanilla extract, sea salt, vitamin C tablets and washing soda can be used to process film from developing through to fixing. Brew up your own low-fi film soup according to the directions provided in this article by chem professor Roger Bunting.
You may want to continue using the nasty chemicals for “fancy pants” photo work, but kitchen concoctions like these can be used to enhance the dirty aesthetic of your box and toy camera black and white experiments. Check out the results by photographers Justin Ouellette and Donna Dobbin.
