Quick blix before developer - interesting result

[kylewilcox]

(Sorry - I'm new, and not really experienced in navigating online forums. I just posted this in a "group" rather than a "forum" section and something tells me that wasn't the right thing to do, and then I couldn't delete it. Did I break a rule?)

I wanted to mention something interesting that happened to me this morning on the way to what I expected to be a total catastrophe. I use Tetenal C41 Press Kits to process color negative film in a metal tank. This particular batch is pretty old - a couple of months at least, so the developer and blix both look about the same dark reddish brown. I inadvertently started pouring in blix before coming to my senses after maybe one or two seconds. I hurriedly washed four or five times to get rid of any residue because I read that even tiny amounts of blix can ruin the developer. Then I processed normally. The blix must affect the different dye layers at different rates, because on some of the negatives I got really amazing rainbow artifacts with intense blue and magenta at the strongest areas and red and yellow radiating out. I'm intrigued.

www.flickr.com/photos/kyle_wilcox/14752957260/

Am I rediscovering something everybody else here has known about forever?

Kyle

 

[tnabbott]

Kyle, welcome to APUG.

I'm not sure you have discovered anything special here. You've described the effect as that of a rainbow but I don't see it. It looks like the blix only got to a portion of the frame before your quick thinking saved the roll through the 4-5 washes to get rid of the residue. From my own sad experience I can tell you that if the blix had reached the entire film and interacted with it for a few more seconds the result would be that the latent image is lost entirely. If you like the result of what happened you may want to look into cross processing film.

 

[kylewilcox]

Thanks, tn.
Quick thinking? More like quick return to thinking. It was the very brief nature of the exposure that I thought might be of interest to people, but there's nothing new under the sun.
I've never considered cross processing, and I'm only vaguely familiar with it. That's using E6 chemistry on C41 or vice versa, right? I'll search for some examples.
I do like the effect, but with the caveat that I don't think it would work (or if the gradations in color are even possible) if it were affecting the whole image. In this case it's just enough to grab your attention and, luckily, it's placed in the sky just right to add a sci-fi-esque narrative flourish. Of course, it's unpredictable. Some other frames on the roll were unaffected, while the ones on the affected side of the spool had varying degrees of "pleasingness." One of them just had a nasty murky green fog creeping in from the corner (I hope I'm not making it sound cool, because it's not).

 

[Peter de Groot]

It works on some photo's. I like it.

 

[tnabbott]

Thanks, tn.

You are welcome, KY