Ask Amber: Is It Easy To Dye Film?
Recently, one of my Instagram friends asked me if it was easy to dye film. The answer is yes! And I want to give ya'll some hot tips and how to's.
Before dying my first roll, I had seen a number of techniques used. I troll the Lomography message boards and follow a lot of great creative 35mm photographers on Instagram and their creativity always gives me ideas of different ways to alter my Fuji film. I have seen people use everything from liquor to urine to dye film. So far, I've dyed three rolls of film that I've used. One, dyed in Chambord, was mal-processed. My other two, however turned out great!
What you need to know before you dye film is that the dying process makes the film EXTREMELY brittle and hard to load into the camera. It breaks when you bend it so I ended up using scotch tape to get my film to stay put without damaging it. Most Lomographers should know that scotch tape is a great friend to have near!
My first roll, seen above, was dyed in coffee. I put the film in a mug and poured hot coffee over it. I did this in September 2014, I think. I don't remember how long I left it in the cup for but I think it was a few days. I let it dry naturally and shot it in January of 2015. The results were ridiculous. I highly recommend coffee baths.
The second roll I've developed after dying was initially exposed with flowers over the summer. I dyed it January with Raspberry Zinger tea. I left is for only a few hours, rinsed it with water, then dryed it with a hair dryer.
NOTE: If you are using a hair dryer, make sure it doesn't have a little on light unless you want light leaks!
I shot it with winter time portraits shortly after drying it. I like the winter/summer juxtaposition. In the forest skyline picture above, you can see the effect of the raspberry tea really well.
I would recommend leaving your film in it's bath at least 24 hours. I like the effects of the brief tea bath but I wish it wasn't as subtle as it is, though even when it is subtle, it did create a lot of cool chemical splotches, as you can see on Toby.
I have seen people use bacteria stains with really beautiful results. However, I don't personally keep bacteria stains around the house and they are a bit pricey to purchase. While $10 - $35 isn't a ton to shell out, when you think of all the weird effects you can make for free using household products (or bodily fluids), it doesn't seem economical. If you are a home developer, I would highly suggest looking at these stains. This is definitely on my "to try in the future" list.
As for things I am trying currently, I have a roll that I've given a 24 hour bath in red wine and a roll that got dunked in hot lemon water for three hours before resting in water and drying naturally. I am about to use some vegetable based hair dyes I have under the sink, diluted with warm water. I'm also really excited to let my nurse roommate draw my blood in the near future so I can use that to dye some film too, which is gross but way less gross than that Norweigan artist who ate his own hip for art reasons.
It is very important to keep in mind the harshness of what you're using to destroy your film with. The higher the acidity, the faster the liquid will degrade the film. Above, you can see what 24 hours of coffee did vs. 3 hours of tea. Orange juice will be very sugary and acidic so that is a liquid I would water down before making into a film soup. I juiced one small lemon by hand into a coffee mug with hot water and left film soak in that for three hours. Hopefully the results will be ETA'd here soon!
I unspooled a roll of film two weeks or so ago in my "darkroom" (bathroom) and taped it "down" (to the shower wall) and sprayed bleach cleaner on to it. I left it for about a half hour, wiped it down, rinsed it thoroughly in water, and dryed it with a hair dryer.
Toby looks beautiful! Wait...
I am pretty positive this big white-ish blob is Toby, the cat previously pictured in my tea soaked film example. He looks a little more abstract here. You can see some shapes, if you look for a while but obviously the desired results were not achieved. So it's my tip that actual chemicals might be a bit much. I'm going to stick to organic liquids from now on.
If you do want to experiments with chemicals, I suggest watering them down by at least 1 c. water per T bleach/ammonia/whatever you're using. But that's just guess work. This roll was a good reminder that a lot of 35mm is guesswork and bleaching was just a film soup that yielded some dramatically abstract results.
