Film Soup

I just want to start out saying that I'm drawn to abstract photography. Double and multiple exposure, Lomography, film soup and and editing tools that give me abstract looks to my photos. I am far from a professional photographer and still in my experimental stages. My latest project has been with film soup.

Basically film soup is 35mm film that has been soaked in different liquids then dried and shot. Film can be souped before or after it is exposed. They both come out the same. I have only used film that has been souped before but I will soup my own soon and will post pictures and recipes after. For my first try I used souped film from a well respected maker of film soup Hanna at Hannalogical. She sells several different styles she makes on her Etsy store by the same name and I will put links at bottom of this post.

The second most important thing to keep in mind using film soup is that most labs will not process it as it can ruin their expensive chemicals. Some people use the old chemicals after doing regular films or as in my case I sent mine to Film Lab 135. Owner Amy Elizabeth does a great job. I don't know of anyone else offering this service. I'm sure you can do it yourself but getting great results is another thing. I prefer to send it to Amy as she has the experience with it.

I shot 4 rolls of different recipes and I must say I love the results. I haven't quite figured out what scenes work best with it. I shot fall colors, landscape, architecture, sunrise, sunset. I can't say its better for one or the other it all depends on what you like.

I like the randomness of it all. You don't know what you are going to get. I have some photos that show light leaks etc. I would really like yo try it some more. I have a couple of rolls of pre souped left and I will do the next rolls myself. I've heard of people souping negatives after the have been developed which seems like an easy way to do it. I will post more after my next experiments with it. I would love to see what you come up with in the comments. As always with photography have fun with it!

Here are some links to film, processing and recipes

HANALOGITAL - Etsy

Film Lab 135

A Film Soup Tutorial » Shoot It With Film

Vericolor III type s, expired 1990

I've nevered shot any expired film so I was happy when Glen at Color Services in Santa Barbara offered me some to run through my camera that was having a problem with spacing. Shot it with my Mamiya rz67. I have read a lot about using expired film. Some people say to lower the f/stop a couple stops and most say to lower the iso by so much depending on the age of the film. It was original 160 iso and Glen said to shoot at 80 iso.

It's hard to hand hold that low but I went in the sun and I'm really happy with the results. Took a few shots in San Ynez valley and hit the farmers market and around town. I didn't do any editing to the pictures. These are straight from the scan.

I'm hoping he has some more floating around. The colors just seem so naturel.

For being so old I didn't know what to expect. I might try some more expired stock down the road. I think that he has refrigerated it the whole time made the difference. If you bought online you just never know. Anyway I thought I would post these if anyone else is thinking about expired film. I always thought film was to expensive to take a chance on but if it was taken care of it;s worth it

Rainy day road trip

Nothing like taking pictures in the rain. We took a ride to our favorite canyon in the central valley to get some end of fall pictures. It was raining a light mist the whole time. It had been raining for a couple of days and for me its my favorite time to take pictures. All the bark on the oaks get really dark and the fall colors get saturated from the water. It was a weekend and we saw maybe 3 people the whole time. Saw a lot of deer and wild turkeys. We usually go to the Sierra for fall colors but they end around the end of September but here its December and I would say they peaked about 1-2 weeks ago.

We left pretty early and grabbed a few tamales from a street vendor for breakfast. Nothing like a fresh made tamale for breakfast on a rainy day.

There was a heavy mist hanging over the valley and it got better the further we drove. I brought my film camera but didn't want to take it out in the rain, I did manage to get a few pics when the rain stopped but went digital for the most part. We always go through this canyon when we are up in the valley because it changes so much as you drive through it. This was by far the best I have seen it. It seems we were stopping every half mile to take pictures before we decided to walk more. Stopped by this big oak for breakfast. We like places that are quiet and not many people so we were in heaven this day.

My wife loves taking pictures and as usual she disappeared somewhere to take pictures why I fiddled with the settings on my camera.

Took a little drive further up the road and found a town I have never heard of before. It was only about 4 blocks long but an old town. It looked to be an old farming town back in the day. I really enjoy when the vineyards change color. It seems some grapes are different colors. There would be huge fields of deep red leaves then whole fields of yellow and orange. I will look into that. Anyways it was a beautiful day in the rain. Enjoy what everyday gives you!