Developing Photographic Film
Photographic film is a long strip of plastic rolled into a canister that allows one to slip it into a camera to capture images. The plastic strip has a chemical emulsion on one side that is sensitive to light. When the shutter opens and closes quickly, light bounces off the object the photographer is looking at and touches the emulsion. Items that reflected more light will cause the emulsion to react more. In this way the negative is exposed.
Next, one has to process the film. It is still very light sensitive so begin in a dark room. Remove the film from the canister, roll it onto a spindle and place it in a light sealed tank. Now one can take the film anywhere. The top of the tank has a funnel for developing chemical to be poured in. This chemical completes the reaction that allows the emulsion to hold onto the image. One must be careful to agitate the tank long enough based upon the temperature of the developing chemical to avoid damaging the pictures.
The second step is to use a stop-bath. This stops the reactions from continuing and keeps the photographic film from appearing over exposed. The last chemical is called a fixer. It removes all unused granules of emulsion, leaving only the image behind. In both of these steps, more agitation is necessary. Since these chemicals can be a little expensive, consider using the fixer and stop bath more than once. They can be recycled a few times before losing effectiveness.
If this work was done outside of the darkroom, the photographer needs now to return to it. The final step is to wash the film. This removes all processing chemicals. If there is any purple left on the strip then something did not process or rinse properly. Repeat the necessary steps and hope some of the pictures still come out.
All that remains is to cut the film into smaller strips and determine which images one wishes to print. Although digital photography is faster, there are images and effects one still can only get with personally developing photographic film. It is an art form that should not soon die out.
Tags:
Developing Film,
Film Development
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