VERDANT LUMINUL
PURIST ANALOG PHOTOGRAPHERS (and I include myself in this group) have a tendency to be somewhat condescending towards the digital-photo-shooting masses. It’s not a REAL photograph if there’s no film or plates involved. Why would you let some algorithm written by a soulless corporate hack dictate your vision? If you can only see an image on a screen, is it really a photograph?
Admittedly, we come across as a bit “holier-than-thou.” But we also harbour some dirty secrets.
Analog photography requires an incredibly toxic process that not only wreaks havoc on the environment and our health, but also has socioeconomic and gender barriers. Proud film shooters have guiltily swept this under the carpet... until now.
BRUCE HILDESHEIM is a polymath. He has played classical bassoon with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kitchener-waterloo Symphony, and the Red Deer Symphony. Now he plays the cello. He is an engineer by trade. He was licensed as a ham radio operator at age 13. He records albums of classical music and produces albums for others. Most importantly to this story, Bruce is an analog photographer.
“I started off working in a traditional darkroom and I didn’t understand how toxic the chemicals were. My darkroom wasn’t particularly well ventilated. I thought it was ventilated enough. I was really getting into it the first year and a half and was stoked with the process.”
Like countless photographers of the past, Bruce was eventually confronted by the dangers of the process he loved. “I became very sick. It got to the point where I would spend 10 minutes in the darkroom, and I would have a sore throat for days.” The combination of dry mountain air and the high ph liquids used in film and print developing forced a reckoning.
“The chemicals include phenidone, hydroquinone, and metol. All these ingredients are not only carcinogenic but also mutagenic. I was horrified. My body was telling me ‘No more!’ I needed to figure out a way to change chemistry or be done with analog photography.”
Bruce took these impediments as a challenge. He started researching alternative processes used in photography since its inception. All were as bad or worse when it came to the toxicity of the chemicals they relied on for developing. He knew of Caffenol, a coffee-based developer first used in 1995, but he had never seen any serious printing done with it. “My initial attempts were hugely disappointing because of the amount of fog it produced on the images.” Bruce continued experimenting, and over the next few months he found his solution.
“I started off working in a traditional darkroom and I didn’t understand how toxic the chemicals were. My darkroom wasn’t particularly well ventilated... I became very sick. It got to the point where I would spend 10 minutes in the darkroom, and I would have a sore throat for days.”
ENTER FRANCIS A. WILLEY, who Photoed readers will remember as the much appropriated creator of the photograph “Blindness.” Francis met Bruce through a mutual friend and they initially connected through their shared love of music. Bruce offered to help Francis record an album, and the two spent many hours together in Bruce’s studio just outside of Calgary.
Conversation naturally turned to their other shared passion of photography. Bruce’s experiments resonated with Francis. Francis dubbed the new process Verdant Luminul, or “green light moving forward,” and they began to envision something revolutionary: taking Caffenol, supercharging it, and ultimately creating a system to make analog photography as close to 100-percent ecologically friendly as possible, including taking the process off the grid by using a solar panel to power the enlarger and control water temperature.
They began with Bruce’s Caffenol process. First they wanted to conquer the smell. Bruce describes it as “Like burnt coffee mixed with laundry detergent. It’s not harmful, but it’s not pleasant!” He notes, “Most traditional developers don’t have a strong odour, and that’s what makes them seem so harmless. It’s really the ‘fixer’ (ammonium thiosulphate) smell that gets noticed in a traditional darkroom.”
They opted to contain the paper in light-safe tubes and attached a hose to them so the solution could pour directly into the drain, creating a dry darkroom. “Using 260 ml of this one-shot developer, you can develop a couple of 8×10’s in a minute and a half. And the solution can just go down the drain. No environmental impact!” Getting rid of the trays created a huge benefit. Suddenly printing could be more democratic. Francis points out, “You don’t need a separate space with trays, a sink, and running water. You can do it in the kitchen of a small apartment! The only space you need is for the enlarger.”
Additional experiments with the process led to even more environmental positives. Francis explains, “We went from using ammonium thiosulphate to sodium thiosulphate as a fixer.” Sodium thiosulphate is much less toxic than its ammonia-based counterpart; in fact, it is used to control chlorine levels in swimming pools. Because it isn’t as strong, fixing time is marginally increased (90 seconds for resin-coated papers, longer for fibre), and it can be used only on a one-shot basis, but this is offset by the fact that it is readily available at a negligible cost.
At this point in time, the only thing they cannot get rid of is the toxic silver on the light-sensitive papers. They hope to offset part of this issue by working with more sustainable paper stock and are experimenting with more ecologically friendly varieties like bamboo.
The proof, of course, is in the pudding. It’s one thing for wild-eyed geniuses to extol the virtues of their creation. To be widely accepted, the product had to be not only easy to use but also aesthetically pleasing.
PHOTOGRAPHER, PUBLISHER, AND CURATOR SANJA LUKAC had just graduated from a program in photography at the Alberta University of the Arts (Auarts) when Francis introduced her to the new process.
She loved analog process’ but says, “The chemicals created a barrier to me.” She says her lungs were damaged: “They’ve always been sensitive. I would still do traditional chemical developing, but it was very difficult. I had dabbled in other processes but was never really happy with the result.”
Verdant Luminul was what she was looking for. “I was blown away by the magic of it. It was like having to learn the darkroom all over again but without having to deal with the effects of the chemicals.”
Sanja learned that many female artists had to stop their analog work because the toxicity of the chemistry was not safe for children or pregnancy. “It made my heart sink,” she shares. “This was genuinely unfair. The feminist in me was just not okay with that.”
Sanja joined forces with Bruce and Francis and the trio “built an environmentally friendly darkroom” and created a three-month residency program at Art Commons. “We were able to invite the public to engage with us and watch us work. There were a lot of great questions being asked by visitors. The curator in me saw this as a strong resurgence of analog photography.
“Experienced darkroom practitioners always ask about the tonal range and ‘getting the blacks.’ Bruce is able to get them beautifully. It’s all about finding your way with the process, just like traditional darkroom printing. I find this process adds a lot of warmth to the work.” Francis agrees, saying, “The tonal range is great. You get deep blacks comparable to chemically processed papers.” Like traditional photographs, prints created with Verdant Luminul are archival and will last for hundreds of years.
Bruce commented that “it works really well printing images shot on 400ISO, Ilford HP5 film. It enhances the grain. It works well on fibre paper and has a nice light-beige tone. After fiddling with the chemical proportions, I was able to achieve some really rich blacks. Our prints show plenty of dynamic range.”
Sanja was happily surprised by the reaction to the residency and a subsequent exhibit of their work at the SEITIES Gallery in Calgary. “The reaction from photographers after seeing the capabilities of Verdant Luminul was ‘Can I do this process?’ ‘Where do I start?’ ‘When can I start?’”
Indeed. The trio began work on a book titled “The Stimulant,” (this name is used interchangeably with Verdant Luminul). Unfortunately, like too many deserving arts projects, their plan stalled. Sanja says, “We applied for several grants. We have testimonials and letters of support from artists who would benefit from this. Still, we hadn’t been able to secure enough funding to develop the book. We’re also all working at capacity most of the time as well, as artists and curators and people and parents. We all have to work in other jobs as well.”
Bruce, too, had to deal with capacity issues. He moved back to his hometown of Cambridge, Ontario, to assist his parents. This distance among the group members impacted the project. Bruce admits, “I didn’t realize how difficult it is to collaborate artistically on any project at a distance. As we are seeing (and will see) with lockdowns, there is no substitute for in-person, face-to-face interaction. Francis, Sanja, and I would hang out every few days for photo shoots and darkroom printing sessions. It was easy to keep momentum going. To proceed, we’ll need to figure out a way around this.”
Hopes are high as Sanja and Francis are planning a trip to renew the project with Bruce as soon as conditions permit. All three have been boosted by the renewed interest in analog photography and look forward to proceeding with publication of “The Stimulant” in the near future.
Francis says, “It’s been ready to go for several years, but there is still room for refinement. We want to offer the original formula and some variations.”
In the evolution of photography, Verdant Luminul presents as something of a dichotomy. It’s a throwback to the alternative processes of the past, yet with its moral implications towards democratization, environmentalism, and feminism it belongs equally to the present and future of film photography.
According to Sanja, “Every step of the process makes me feel like I’m doing something very right.”
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