Sue Reno Studio: Experiments in film soup

October 21, 2025

Experiments in film soup - part 5

Hello, and welcome to part 5 of my occasional series where I share images altered by the film soup process.

These were taken on 35mm Kodak gold film, with a vintage Olympus OM10 camera.

After finishing the roll, I soaked the film canister in a solution of water with a bit of dish soap for 24 hrs., drained it, and let it dry out for several weeks.

I then sent it off for special processing (don't use a regular lab, it will mess up their chemistry) and these are the results.

I'm still learning the ins and outs of this camera, so some of the images are not perfectly exposed, but I likes the eerie vibes of the above photo nonetheless.

All of these images are from various places along the Montour Trail, south of Pittsburgh PA.

I'm finding that in general, dish soap, which is a base, gives a very different vibe than lemon/lime juice, which is an acid. Of course there are a lot of variables inherent to the process, just like working with cyanotype, but learning to control for some of the variables is what makes these experiments so much fun.