Below are images and video documentation from our recent Handmade Emulsion Workshop with MONO NO AWARE. During this workshop, participants prepared and coated emulsion from scratch onto 16mm clear acetate leader. The majority of these coatings were on short (approx. 0.3 meter long) “test strips” which were then used to create simple photograms with an enlarger. However, two longer (approx. 30 meter) strips were produced using a rack system developed by Joshua Lewis of MONO NO AWARE. These strips were used to create two contact prints — one of un-split 8mm provided by workshop participant David Beard, and another of 16mm negative provided by workshop co-educator Sarah Bigaini. Following printing, all strips were processed as negative.

The majority of the material from the workshop survived for the transfer below; however, the un-split 8mm footage is actually a contact print produced from the original handmade emulsion onto 7363 (Kodak High Contrast Print Stock) by David Beard and Joshua Lewis. One of the most obvious difference between this print and the original material is the tint of the emulsion with the original material clearly trending towards warmer tones. This is partially because of limited fixing and rinsing of the films emulsion as it is very fragile during processing and must be handled very limitedly in order to prevent it from lifting entirely from the films base.

Photo Credit: David Beard

Video Transfer: DiJiFi (Brooklyn, New York)