Made Us Look: A Portable Darkroom for Printing Smartphone Photos
We’re suckers for the whole digital going back to analog thing, and the photography department is no exception. We’ve swooned over a portable film scanner, the Impossible Instant Lab that turns your digital photos into instant photos, and are always up for a new way to repurpose our printed photos. Well, this latest Indiegogo project has definitely peaked our curiosity – it’s a portable darkroom that works with your phone to produce old school black and white prints. Meet Enfojer.
Described as an old school darkroom for smartphones, Enfojer is the first portable photo enlarger that works with your smartphone. The hope with this neat doodad is to preserve the old art of photo development, while recognizing the fact that most moments are now captured on our phones.
Prints last up to 70 years, and happen to be a heck of a lot cheaper than most average photo printers. Plus, they have that irregular darkroom quality that it is impossible to capture, even with your favorite Instagram filter.
Here’s how it works:
Download the Enfojer app, select a photo you like, and adjust the settings as you see fit. It’s just like your high school photography class, with a developer, stop bath, fixer, and all!
As for materials, you’ll need to hit up a local photography store to get a standard batch of black and white photo development chemicals. They recommend Ilford Multigrade Developer and Ilford Rapid Fixer. You’ll also need photographic papers – though some Enfojer bundles include that as well.
Put on the red light in your makeshift darkroom to protect the photo paper.
Place your phone in the cradle on top of the Enfojer. Adjust the enlarger so that the photo is focused and the right size (up to 6 inches by 6 inches). Snap your fingers to turn the phone light off and place paper in the enlarger. Snap your fingers again to expose the photos. The light from your phone is enough to create the print! If you haven’t already, we highly recommend watching this video to see the whole thing in action.
Pretty darn cool if you ask us – we can’t wait to try it out! $200 gets you one of the first Enfojers ever made, shipping around February 2014.
Would you try this out? What do you think of going going back to analog with your digital pics? Talk to us in the comments below.
