Alternative Processes | Painting with Caffenol

Caffenol is an alternative film and print developer that has been around for little over two decades. The ingredients are simple: instant coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. I began my caffenol journey a little over a year and a half ago and shortly discovered just how much the process had to offer.

After solidifying my skills of traditional development with caffenol, i.e submerging the image in a tray, washing, fixing..etc, I began to paint with the developer. This entails using a paint brush of choice to paint the developer on the exposed silver gelatin paper. With glossy paper this gives one sharp lines, lost of contrast, and amble room to experiment with negative spaces in a print. When painting with matte paper the brush strokes become absorbed into the paper, creating more of a nostalgic or vignetted look.

When I paint I choose to heat up my caffenol developer because this develops the print faster, making it easier to see the brushstrokes and be intentional about where to place them. There are so many factors and room for expression however when using this method that it can be done virtually any way.

The corresponding image is a caffenol painting done in 2015 on matte paper.

#art #photography #alternativeprocess #darkroom