Let's start with the good news. The best possible news. I got my missing films back! It took 5 weeks but they found their way back to me. The first batch was then sent off the next day to a new-to-me lab, Take It Easy in Leeds (more about them later) and I am now eagerly looking through the second batch of scans that arrived in my inbox this week.

This has meant a bit of a delay in getting the prints out to all of you who sponsored a roll of film in August. I really appreciate all the lovely messages of support and those prints will be with you by the end of November. ‘Sponsor a roll’ is continuing until the end of the year and I’m currently in Wales making new work, so see the link at the bottom of this post for more info and links. 

Knowing the kids and teenagers that have grown up at the eco village for as long as I have, I often forget how struck I was on that first visit in 2010 by how switched on they were, how they questioned things so much more than I did as a youngster (I’m still learning that the questioning is such a key part, so much more important than feeling you have all the answers). The term ‘sustainable’ wasn’t a term I was familiar with when I was growing up in Toronto in the 80's. We knew (because we had been told by adults) that we had to look after the planet but I wasn’t really grasping the connection between how our actions and how we lived could affect the environment. I just knew not to overfill the kettle and tried to use the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. And that people who littered were most unsavoury characters. 

Whilst I became more environmentally aware as I grew up, I really credit that first visit to the eco village as being the time that I began to think more about sustainable living and with that came a real interest that not only influenced my day to day life but also my photography. I had been floundering for some time trying to work out what excited me in terms of a subject matter, something that really meant something to me and I had finally found my thing. 

Over the years my interest in sustainability kept growing as I continued to photograph the people at the eco village and also when I worked on an extremely engaging commission in Brighton from FotoDocument and Photoworks about Sustainable Materials.  But slowly, a niggling sensation has begun to creep up on me. Something isn’t sitting quite right. Whilst my photography projects for the past 12 years have been focused on sustainable living and documenting people living low impact lives, I’ve been ignoring the impact that my photographic process has environmentally. Film contains gelatin, an issue that’s been a difficult one for me as a vegan. Also, film processing uses chemicals potentially damaging to the environment and the organisms within it. But I really had no idea where to start in looking at this, it felt too big an issue to be looked at. So I decided I might need some help with the process of examining what I could do.

One of the best things I’ve found about the process of applying for project funding is how writing the application  stretches you. Admittedly, there may have been times that I felt like I was writing things to tick boxes but in doing this it has made me make my project bigger and my thinking deeper.

This is what led me to contact Hannah Fletcher from the organisation The Sustainable Darkroom to begin dialogue sessions to start to think and look at my practice in terms of sustainability. Hannah also delivered a workshop on making plant based developer at the eco village hub in August which was such a great introduction to using plants to limit the amount of chemicals used in the developing process.  When I heard The Sustainable Darkroom was hosting four days of workshops at a lab in Leeds in September I decided a mini road trip was in order. 

I booked on to two workshops taking place on the same day: one on making miniature pinhole cameras and taking photos with them and another on ‘Waste Management’. When I told Duncan about the waste management workshop he suggested maybe I do something else that sounded more fun. Granted this wasn’t the sexiest sounding of all the workshops available but I weirdly thought it might actually turn out to be rather enjoyable and also interesting and useful. Also, as it was an evening session I thought there might be a good likelihood that it could lead to an after-workshop hang out in a pub. I was right. 

I enjoyed both of those sessions and meeting some really great people so much that I ended up going to another session the following evening on Sustainable Thinking. All the workshops were wonderful and with photography so often feeling like such a solitary practice, being in a workshop environment and interacting with other likeminded people whilst making photographs felt like such a welcome change. Connection and conversation go a long way. 

When I first arranged to have the dialogues with Hannah, I confess that I thought that I’d come away with more solid solutions to my own practice, like “Buy this film, use this lab, and everything will be better!”. Silly me. But I think the first step is to start questioning, to start conversations rather than expecting to come up with easy and straightforward solutions. I also need to remember that small steps are a great way to start. One such example of this came from Hannah during the waste management session where she told of how the recommendation of washing your film for 20 minutes under a running tap can use up to 120 litres of water when actually 1.2 litres will not only wash the film adequately, it is considered enough to make the film archival. 

While I may not have any big ideas on making my colour film photography practice more sustainable, I am intrigued and excited to learn more about alternative processes. And hey, maybe I'll think about doing a future series in black and white that makes use of some of the techniques I’ve learnt about. 

I’m also delighted to have found a new lab after Peak Imaging, who I’d used for 10 years, closed down at the end of August. The Sustainable Darkroom workshops were held at Take It Easy Lab, a fantastic indie lab who are addressing the environmental impact of film processing in really interesting ways. It's well work a look at their website to find out more.

Offline Journal

Offline is a rather wonderful magazine edited and published by Brian Carroll which celebrates photography in, from and of Wales. At the time of writing there are still a few copies left of the recent issue, #9. Click here for a link to the website.

I’m super delighted to have the cover of the recent issue with my photograph of Bea and Skye and a fantastic article about the project within its pages. It also features photos I haven’t shared yet from the project, including this one below. I’m still finding the balance between holding back images and sharing a few from the project but I couldn’t resist sharing one of my absolute favourites so far of Maia and Mirelle at Dance Camp from this summer. 

The Sustainable Darkroom

Offline Journal

Elizabeth Ellenwood

Take It Easy Lab

The summer's 'sponsor a roll' went incredibly well, thank to everyone for helping to support the project. I've decided to keep it going for the rest of 2022. 

For £20 you’ll get a shout out, a print that I select from that roll of medium format film on A4 paper and my eternal gratitude. 

To participate or for more info please click here