I’m working on a concept for a series of black and white film photographs manually developed using coffee and orange juice.

Part of the project would be, if possible, to not use a normal fixing agent as the final step in the development process. “Fixing” is the process of washing unexposed silver halide off a completed image so that it is no longer effected by radiation.

I need to understand the chemistry of film photography better than I do currently to implement the idea. I was good at chemistry back in high school… I distinctly remember being able to work with equations like this:

AgBr + S₂O₃^-2 –> AgS₂O₃^- + Br^-

AgS₂O₃^- + S₂O₃^-2 –> Ag(S₂O₃)₂^-3

Ag(S₂O₃)₂^-3 <--> AgS₂O₃^- + S₂O₃^-2; AgS₂O₃ <--> Ag+ + S₂O₃^-2

But right now I’m trying to do it high-level in terms of acids, bases, and salts: what salt can I make a solution of and wash over silver halide which will bind nicely in reasonable quantities? NaCl works, but you need oceans of it.

Of course, none of this stops me from taking rolls of film — just from developing it.

Anyway, this is one of the several reasons photography is a very fun nerdhobby: it meshes science and art.