How to develop by hand your Instant Mini

After having some little problems with my instant photos, I decided to play with a Fuji Instax film cartridge. This is what happens when you develop by hand this tiny instant photos.

I had a problem with my Diana F+ Instant Back, which didn’t eject an exposed Fuji Instax photo. I didn’t throw it away, due to my Diogenes syndrome. And after some time thinking on it I decided to give it a new use.

I was looking at the Instant Back when I finally understood how it works and how the film is developed. But if you want to know more, you can check this article by cruzron

To get this kind of effects, you only need:

- A dark room
- A straight surface
- A hard plain object.

You need to be good at DIY… So maybe it’s a good idea to practice this tip with an empty cartridge and an already developed instant photo before doing it with a non-developed film.

1º.- This step depends on the effect that you want to get. If you want to develop a picture, you must shoot with your camera. If you want to draw forms and figures with the film chemicals, you don’t need to snap.

2º.- In a dark room, you will need to open the Instant Back and take off the cartridge. After that, take off the exposed photo by the cartridge slot.

3º.- Turn the exposed side of the photo face up on a straight surface. Use the plain object to sweep away the photo surface from outside to inside. It is important to repeat this step several times, pressing down pretty hard (but taking care to not break the chemical pack, which will turn your photo in black!.) You’ll know if you are doing it well because the thick white border will deflate after loosing some chemicals.

4º.- After you have done this, you can return back the cartridge into the Instant Back and turn on the light to see your results.

As I was telling you, depending on the pressure and the distribution of the chemical stuff, you’ll get different results in your picture, because the areas without enough pressure will be in white.

Also, you can choose to not take any photo and just go on developing them. In this case, the draws will depend on of chemicals distribution, so you can do it in different ways: pressing down only in one side of the photo, using your nail or a coin to make some pressure, drawing circles or lines… as you wish.

Here I leave you some examples:

written by jodidopanki on 2011-05-26 #gear #tutorials #instant #hand #mini #lab-rat #tipster #development #diana-f #instantback #film-processing