In response to Martha Jurksaitis' post on finding washing soda for use in caffenol: regular baking soda can be converted into washing soda by spreading it in a pan and baking it in the oven (400F for 1 hr). The finish & consistency will be slightly different after baking. I've used this in my caffenol mixes. (Interesting texture & colour that you achieved in your film, Martha.)
- Sandra --Forwarded Message Attachment-- From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 22:17:49 +0100 Subject: [Frameworks] Making a colour film in a less toxic way Hi all, I'm really pleased there's this conversation going on, it's making me think about being so much more careful. I would love to avoid using toxic chemistry altogether. I recently travelled to Finland to do some filmmaking and photography using methods that tread lighter on the earth (and on us!), and this is one of the films I came up with. It was processed in Caffenol (coffee, washing soda, and vitamin C) found in local Finnish shops. I had to look around a fair bit, as washing soda is known as Natrium Karbonati or something, since the older Latin version of sodium was natrium, and that worried me for a bit, thinking 'is it the same thing??', but yes it is. The coffee was the cheapest possible (often best for caffenol). The Vitamin C was from a hardware store that sold harnesses and things for animals (I was in the middle of the Finnish countryside after all!), and was super strength Vitamin C for horses! So anyway, I processed the film like this, and then I fixed it in sea saltwater - 300g sea salt dissolved in 1 litre water. Almost saturated. Hard to get it all to dissolve, but got there. Then fixed the film for about 20 hours. Or until I could wait no more! I then painted it using Peerless Watercolours, which are totally eco and intended for tinting photographs (the watercolours are actually paper impregnated with eco dyes), then digitised the film, and flipped it to a positive, and tweaked the colour balance. The sound is also of the forest. Although there was some toxicity (the heavy metals in the sea salt fixer, for example), this way of making a colour film went a little easier on the earth, and on me. I hope you like it. https://vimeo.com/69814260 x Martha JurksaitisAnalogue Film and Photography Artist
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