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Coffee Stop Fix


This is the first of several posts about a project I am pursuing at the moment. A week ago my father, brother and I had a family and friends gathering in memory of my late mother. I decided to make portraits of all the guests with my TLR Seagull camera loaded with 6x6 120 type film.
The project coincides with me wanting to develop my b&w films at home. I decided that the Caffenol method suited me. It's cheap and more friendly to the environment than regular developers.
Caffenol developer consists of a mix of instant coffee, pure vitamin c and pure soda. The stop bath and fixer are the conventional ones.
You mix the ingredients in normal temperature and no special arrangements are necessary.
I use a dark bag to load the film onto the spool which is then sealed inside the Paterson developing tank.
You can find the Caffenol recipe on the dedicated website.

My first film - one with photographs that aren't dear to me - came out a bit dark. But reading on forums that seems normal. Scanners find the silver grain anyway.
And the two portrait films came out alright, it seems. One was a b&w Ilford FP4 and the other a colour Portra 160. Both came out in b&w. I haven't yet had the opportunity to scan them. They are still damp from developing. And my computer may have bitten the dust last night so I have to prowl the town for a scanning friend.

I'll keep you posted!
Meanwhile visit my camera shop at Etsy!

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