Carbol Fuchsin Film: Pink It!

In an attempt to create something similar to the Lomography X Tungsten 64 film, Krolikowski Art made a crazy darkroom experiment with carbol fuchsin.

Lomographers create ever new ways to change the look of images on film. Today, I want to talk about the new experiment that I conducted with @alexandra_krolikowski.

In an attempt to create something similar to the Lomography X Tungsten 64, we decided to tone unexposed film before loading it into the camera.

But first, let me warn you that this advice is for lab rats. You’ll need to tone the film inside a developing tank and dry it after in complete darkness. If you have never tried developing film by yourself, this might be somewhat difficult for you. But maybe this could be a good opportunity to try developing your film manually.

So, for our mad experiment we’ll need:

• Carbol fuchsin, also known as Castellani’s paint in the USA. You can buy this at a pharmacy or paint store.
• Developing tank. You may also use other light-tight containers, but you will need to manipulate the fluid in darkness.
• Darkroom
• Hairdryer with cold air mode
• Scissors
• Slim office tape

To begin, dissolve carbol fuchsin in water. Be careful – the chemical can leave stains on your clothes.

The color of the mixture we used was saturated.

While inside a darkroom, remove the film from the canister and cut it until there’s only two to three centimeters of film sticking out from it. This would be useful later on when re-spooling the film into the canister. Load the film in the tank.

Operations while the film is in the tank can be carried on in daylight.

Fill the tank with the carbol fuchsin solution. Rotate the tank several times in 10 minutes.

Drain the solution and rinse the film with clean water. Change the water several times until it comes out transparent.

The most difficult thing is drying the film before winding it back into the canister. We used a hairdryer with cold air mode. If you have a darkroom that no one else can enter, you can leave the film there to dry for several hours.

After drying the film, wind it back to the canister. To do this, use office tape to attach the film “tongue” sticking out of the cassette to your carbol fuchsin film. Then, roll it inside cassette. Be careful to not roll the film all the way inside. Leave out a small part so you can load the film into your camera. Naturally, this procedure should be carried out in complete darkness.

Load the film into the camera. It is now ready to be exposed.

Here are our results. We used a roll of Konika 100 VX film:

You may also try using other other aniline dyes for the film experiment. Don’t forget to tell us about your results!

written by alexander_krolikowski on 2014-11-04 #gear #tutorials #diy #experiment #lab-rat #tipster #requested-post #film-experiments #film-soup #carbol-fuchsin #castellani-s-paint