Today I will post some pictures, that show how much fun experimenting with Caffenol can be.
Igor says:
“These pictures were taken about 3 years ago and were developed without any professional equipment in a pan. we were sitting in a dark bathroom stiring the film in caffenol with a spoon:) that is why those pictures are not so technically perfect. But it was all about fun. Also I should add that sea water was used as a fixer here.”
Yes, indeed those are far from being technically perfect, and I would not recommend using this technique for everyday purpose, and you should really use real fixer to make your pictures last long enough to show them to your grandchildren. But from an artistic point of view I think those are very good examples and show how much can be done with very little equipment. Just don’t hesitate to show what you are doing, in my opinion caffenol should be fun. And if the fun goes as far as fulfilling all your B&W development needs, that’s even better.
Check out my recipes, or the ones from Reinhold and you will have hours of fun. Or be crazy enough to develop you own recipes and be even more crazy and send me your results so everybody can have fun by looking at your wonderful pictures
More, but not caffenol related pictures from Igor can be found on his Flickr stream
I cannot repeat myself often enough, but if you have pictures, recipes, or even unsuccessful experience with caffenol, feel free to contact me.
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hey, that`s really wonderful! I would like to know your procedure for developing papers. We have tried it but failed. thanks for answer.
Amazing.. what was the procedure you used for fixing with sea water?
Sea water will definitely NOT work as a fixer! Anyone trying to tell you that either lacks experience or are trying to dupe you.
Washing paper or film in sea water is just that a wash, nor fixing takes place.
Give it a few moments thought: fixing means making the image PERMANENT. It involves keeping the converted silver that makes the image, while getting rid of unexposed, un-converted silver-halides.
To achieve that you need to wash out permanently rather insoluble silver-halide salts that is inside the emulsion. Making these unexposed, non-developed silver salts soluble is left to one group of chemicals, thiosulphate salts, usually Sodium thiosulphate (traditional fixer) or Ammonium thiosulphate (rapid-fixer).
The transformation from insoluble to soluble salt takes place in 4 interconnected steps and is rather involved, I will not try to repeat them here. But it is enough to say that simple halides, in the form of either NaCl, KBr or KI does not have any part in this transformation.
Therefore washing in sea water, no matter what “wonderful” effects sea water salts are purported to have, makes no fixer. What it might do is wash out some of the residues from development, and the developing agent itself from the emulsion.
In that way the remnant silverhalides inside the emulsion are not blackened immediately, so you can watch them in subdued light for a some amount of time. But even when left in pitch black darkness, if the emulsion was exposed to light after development, the silver halides WLL be blackened, all of the image will disappear and what will be left is a black nothingness.
Sorry to rain on your parade.
If sea water doesn’t work at all as a fixer how do you explain these images? They obviously lasted long enough to scan, and definitely not in ‘subdued light’ since scanning involves shining a **** off bright light in their face.
Physical evidence speaks far louder than any amount of theorising.
What can I say?
Since Sir John Herschel’s discovery of sodium thiosulfate as a fixing agent before 1839 is held to be as great a discovery as Daguerre’s was for photography, and since NOONE in the industry ever found a way to replace this sodium thiosulphate, especially by ordinary SALT which is in itself a weak silver solvent, i.e. in a far stronger concentration than sea water it would remove the picture eventually…. : Sea water is pure water with a little salt in in, ca 3.5% and has no magical properties at all. Trace elements can be safely ignored here….
This reminds me of the following picture : A car is thundering down a road, at the far end is a brick wall. At the roadside stands me with a sign : BEWARE OF THE WALL DOWN THE ROAD!. You driving by at 125 mph, shouting as you passes :EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!
Be my guest, knock yourself out, but don’t leave your prints on a table exsposed to sunlight…..
I understand the theory behind it but the fact is that here we have five passable prints, ‘fixed’ in seawater that haven’t disintegrated the moment they come into contact with normal light. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see. There’s definitely more to test here, and i likely will when i get the chance.
“Fix” means preserving for a LOOOONG while. You have not done your homework, nor have you tested this in a way remotely passable for a scientific test.
If you prefer to do this, its up to you, but DON’T try to impress anyone else claiming you have fixed the prints in a way remotely connected to what you have – if you use a common thiosulfate fixer bath.
[ If you will test this further, here is what you should to : prepare 4 prints (or four rolls of film), "fix" them with ordinary salt. (what you do here is using a prolonged stop bath, you stop the developer action and washes the developer out.
This will not stop light interaction with the chloro-bromides in the emultion!! ]
Further on in the test :
Ascertain that all are equally developed and hang them to dry in a dark room, preserving them from light.
Now to the test :
Take one of the dried prints/films and put it in a place with plenty sun-light, near a window. Keep the other in the dark-room, shielded from light.
Take the remaining prints/films and put them back in the water, hang one to dry in the darkroom, put the other next to the dry print/film, exposed to sunlight.
Leave the specimens in the sun for a week. Then compare the exposed to the non-exposed, in a room with subded darkroom light, check if they have blackened. Also check in the wet prints/films are worse than the dry.
Report back your findings.
Leave the exposed prints/films for another week, check and report back…..
Go on for 3 months and be man enough to acknowledge that your theory was but a theory, not scientific fact. Your images will blacken with time, contrast will be gone and your images lost.
The oldtimers took their work very seriously, thanks to them we can all enjoy images of our grandfathers and even or great grandfather and -mothers, and that is because knowledgeable photograpers did their job to the best of their knowledge and ALL used sodium thiosulfate as a fixing agent…..
If you prefer to do this, its up to you, but DON’T try to impress anyone else claiming you have fixed the prints in a way remotely connected to what you have – if you use a common thiosulfate fixer bath.
Promote confidence, not cockiness Erik.
If you will test this further, here is what you should to : prepare 4 prints (or four rolls of film), “fix” them with ordinary salt.
We’re not talking about saltwater, but seawater.
Trace elements can be safely ignored here….
Can they? Are you familiar with the ionic composition of seawater?
NaCl obviously takes the cake with being the number one ionic compound in seawater. However, are you aware that Magnesium Sulfate and Sodium Sulfate are the second and third highest in concentration? Sodium Sulfate comes in at about 2700mg/L.
While the amount of Na2SO42- in seawater is about 1.8% of that found in a typical fixer with accompanying sulfites, it is still possible for a completely legitimate fix to be obtained.
Sulfates are fairly abundant in seawater and that is all that is needed to corrode Ag+.
The question isn’t about an absolute right or wrong, but rather what is the best way to achieve our goal in a reasonable amount of time with exceptional results.
That’s what our “grandfathers” have given us. Especially Johann Rudolf Glaube, who discovered that “Glauber’s Salt” (Na2SO4) can be found in natural water sources.
I was born and raised in Cologne. There in the 70s, the Rhine was so over salted that environmentalists have developed a film in it.
The current mayor has mentioned this again in a recent speech. You can read it here:
http://www.stadt-koeln.de/mediaasset/content/pdf-ob/reden/2007/09/17-rhein-wasserwerke.pdf
you can see a documentaion photo for this action in the rhine here
http://www.pollermaigeloog.de/presseberichte.html
nice day for you, Martina