I love the look of cross process processed Holga 120 film. It brings the colors to life and kicks up the contrast. Of course, not all images look great with this style of processing, so you have to pick and choose what you photograph. That’s why I tend to carry three Holgas with me when I travel :). That way I can take the photo with the right camera for the situation.
In this case, the scene is in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Los Muchachos is a historic hardware store build back in 1910. This image shows the name of the store over its awnings. It has been painted in different colors over the years.
Cross processing is where you start with slide film. In this case, for a photo I took in 2015, I used:
Fuji Fujichrome 64T Type II Slide Film (Exp 9/2003)
This film was developed at https://oldschoolphotolab.com/
So you can see it was a bit on the old side. That’s part of what makes it fun for me. That slide film was then processed with normal print chemicals rather than with slide film chemicals. That meant I could make prints out of the film, rather than slides, and also that it kicked up the way the colors were shown.
I definitely recommend playing with cross process developing. It can create interesting effects in film photography.
Photo by Lisa Shea
Order Prints of Los Muchachos from FineArtAmerica
To learn more about how cross processing works, visit: