How To: Negs from a Grocery Store

[David A. Belew]

The Navy used seawater to WASH films and papers, followed by a short rinse in fresh water. During the war, it was discovered that the prints and films washed in seawater actually washed more thoroughly than film and prints washed in fresh water only, at shore based labs. The resulting photos were found to be more resistant to fading and yellowing, prompting a chemical analysys of seawater that resulted in the formulation of hypo-clearing agents such as KHCA and Perma-Wash. At least that's what I was told in Navy Photo School back in the late '70s.

Mike Sullivan

This is correct.
One of my friends was on one of Steichen's photo teams in WWII. Unfortunately, he recently passed away (at age 96). He actually learned
of this process while a Merchant Marine officer prior to WWII. Pictures he had taken in Japan a month before 12/41 and submitted to the Navy resulted in his being drafted into the Navy as a photographer.

[eric]

hi steve

didn't some people use seawater as fixer ?
i don't know where i read that ...

john

A few years ago, I read on one of the alt-photo mailing lists, that someone processed film with Charles River water.

[greybeard]

There is (or was) a fairly extensive discussion of nontraditional developer formulation on the unblinkingeye.com site. You could also check the alternative processes forum on photo.net; the topic has come up there at least once. (Not sure if there has been anything recently, since both sites are blocked where I work and are too complex to be worth following on the dialup line from home.)

[eric]

A few years ago, I read on one of the alt-photo mailing lists, that someone processed film with Charles River water.

Oh let me add, I've also read that some people have success with Tea developer and Coffee developer.

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

Coffee Deveoper's pretty effective actually...as for fixer, I've heard salt water doesnt actually do anything in the fixing process. Are there any alternatives to Hypo at all? I've been curious about this for a while myself.

[jim appleyard]

Mike, thanks for correcting me on that point.

[BrianShaw]

A few years ago, I read on one of the alt-photo mailing lists, that someone processed film with Charles River water.

Which part of the Charles -- above the Waltham dam or below?

[szazs]

Steve - I asked pretty much the same question here several months ago. From what I could glean you have to go with sodium thiosulfate as a fixer; salt water is a wish at best. Pool supply houses, like for municipal pools, carry it as a dechlorinator. There are a million things (well...) that you can use as developer (swamp water), but sodium thio is your fixer...

[jnanian]

thanks for correcting me regarding the seawater!
i knew it was used for something, just a matter of
remembering what

[szazs]

thanks for correcting me regarding the seawater!
i knew it was used for something, just a matter of
remembering what

You did read that seawater was used for fixer (a long time ago), so did I. I thought I was really onto something. The consensus from the gentle/wise souls here was that it would take a real loooong time to do any "fixing", and it wouldn't really be "fixed", as in "not going to fade." Nuts; that would be too easy now, wouldn't it?