Dumpster developing

[Bwystfil]

I recently got into film photography as well as home darkroom stuff. I prefer shooting regular clean everyday stuff digitally, so what I'm mainly interested in is making awful, damaged, and improperly developed negatives and prints. I've been shooting with two 35mm SLRs I retrieved from the garbage - a Minolta SRT-202 and a Pentax P50. The Minolta has a bad shutter curtain problem and the mirror mechanism locks occasionally, the Pentax is physically fine but a little crippled, feature-wise.

The first shots were on the Minolta, using 200 Kodak drugstore colour film. I developed the roll with b/w paper developer, and by running it through a 5x7 tray because I didn't yet have a developing tank. All the other steps were done by throwing the spaghetti film into the other trays and swishing it around.





I've since acquired a developing tank as well as some DD-X. These are from the Pentax, same crap drugstore Kodak colour film, developed in DD-X.









Minolta, Ilford Delta 3200, DD-X.







Thoughts? Tips? Ideas for further distressing/destroying negatives?

 

[limr]

Those are really great! You're giving me ideas...

As for offering ideas, have you ever tried Caffenol? Not really for destroying negatives, but might give you different effects.
Caffenol

 

[Gavjenks]

The first two have some pretty obvious fogging issues. Are you sure both cameras are not physically damaged in terms of light leaks? Did those both come from one of the two in particular?

The rest look pretty good for the circumstances! They look like they have questionable lenses taking them, with bad corner distortions and defects. Certainly I would suggest stopping down a lot more in the future with those, unless you really need shallow DOF artistically. Otherwise look pretty decent, though.

 

[KenC]

I like the fog effect and "feel" in the first two. Were you using a safelight? If so, that explains the fog, because of course color film reacts to all visible wavelengths so there is no light which is safe for use. You could experiment with light (intensity, color, etc.) to deliberately fog the film.

You could also try temperature shock (use hot developer or develop at normal temp, then plunging into ice water. You might get some nice emulsion cracks.

Have fun!

 

[Bwystfil]

The first two have some pretty obvious fogging issues. Are you sure both cameras are not physically damaged in terms of light leaks? Did those both come from one of the two in particular?

The rest look pretty good for the circumstances! They look like they have questionable lenses taking them, with bad corner distortions and defects. Certainly I would suggest stopping down a lot more in the future with those, unless you really need shallow DOF artistically. Otherwise look pretty decent, though.

Haha, I should have mentioned that the first two were developed with a safelight on. I've only got a small bathroom to work with so I had to sacrifice a bit to make sure I didn't get chemicals all over my toothbrush.

The distortion can possibly be explained too, although the lenses I'm using are probably contributing at least a little. I'm "scanning" using a Beseler 23cii enlarger with a dslr body jammed up against the lens, any hope for alignment or a precise focus is pretty much thrown out the window. I'll probably just start scanning prints, or pick up a negative scanner at some point. Or maybe build one.

Also yeah, I'm used to shooting wide open but I should probably start stopping down more often.

 

[Derrel]

Some good stuff! I like the ones with the woman in them the most. However, I also like the first two shots as well! This is some nifty lo-fi stuff you've managed to shoot. Nice goin'!

 

[grokglock]

The fourth shot is incredible! can we know focal distance, distance to subject, time of day, light conditions???? WOW

 

[terri]

#s 3 and 4 get my vote....but it's all pretty interesting in the way you approached it.

#4 in particular has a fantastic dreamlike quality to it, while still being completely realistic...wonderful! Good work.

 

[Buckster]

These are really great. I especially like the first two, with the foggy effect. Keep playing with this!