Bindis soaked in caffenol (washing powder, vitamin C and coffee)
I noticed talk (on the interwebs) of a new kind of rayogram process discovered by Karol Doing. He spoke at The Shifting Ecologies of Photochemical Film in the Digital Era seminar in June 2021. From that presentation I learnt more about the - how to - of the process: 1. gather plants, 2. soak them in washing powder and vit C, 3. lay them on exposed black and white film in the sun (no darkroom) for some time, 4. wash them, 5. fix the images (with regular fixer), 5. dry and scan. A perfect lockdown recipe. Easy to do at home and outside.
Doing calls his process Phytograms naming it by the change that occurs from the chemical in the plant when it touches the emulsion. In late July I ran out of vitamin C during the current lockdown and hesitant to throw out a recently used caffenol mixture (it is supposed to be a ‘one shot’ developer) I decided to re-use it inspired by Doing’s process and soak some garden plants in used caffenol. I have used caffenol recipe meaning I could soak anything that can absorb the developer but I started my experiment with Bindis a painful weed in my backyard (always noticed in bare feet). Plucked and soaked overnight in my tired caffenol mixture (I did the experiment from what I remembered from the talk not looking them up - later I read he just dips the plants in the developer). The bindi’s were then placed on expired and exposed 16mm daylight load end I had hanging around for about an hour. They were then rinsed in water and fixed. Magic to see the imprint of the bindi on the cleared film. I have since experimented with more plants such as seaweed (oh my the stench of seaweed and coffee is not good), a birds feather, bitue bush and wattle bush. Gathering things locally at home and at the beach gives you another way of being in your environment. You walk through it looking for things you could fit onto 16mm film or photo-paper. Instead of walking through it, or on it; you bend over, touch and prod, you think about how it got to be in the place you are, you carry the object and these thoughts with you,. The impact of the weed, the death of the bird, the chemical compounds in the seaweed make you present to your environment and your movement in it. Doing has shared his process with many analogue artists and students since his discovery. Listening to his presentation about his discovery of the process and his desire to share the process by teaching it in workshops I was struck how this sharing came from his his engagement with his environment and in a sense was a teaching of a way of being from the plants. Perhaps I haven’t said here enough to join all those dots but it is something I would like to follow up on. Here is his website: https://phytogram.blog/research/







