East Coast Film Lab

East Coast Film Lab, Wilmington NC

Been a busy year. Although I've done better with Facebook, I've sorely neglected the blog. Hope to change that this coming year. Something new. Or maybe I should say, something old. A couple of like minded friends and I decided to open an old fashioned film lab and a rental darkroom. I love to shoot digital at weddings, as the workflow is so fast, but there's a lot to be said about good old fashioned film. Film has got a look, that digital can't quite duplicate. Film is actually making a comeback, but we found finding someone to process it quickly was becoming difficult. The drugstores aren't processing film anymore in house; they're sending it out, with a two week turn around and they don't return your negatives. You just get a CD. All the film labs in the area from 10 years ago have closed up, so you aren't left with many choices if you enjoy the look of film.

East Coast Film Lab, Wilmington NC

Mille Fillmore

Then there's the darkroom. Darkrooms are cool, but they take up a lot of room and they need to be light tight. A much beloved local educator has been trying to get crowd funding to start a local community darkroom, with little success. It's expensive to get it going and time consuming.

On Thanksgiving morning four of us met over breakfast at Waffle House. We decided to combine a film lab and a rental darkroom under the same roof. We decided to call it East Coast Film Lab.
We're just about up and running. Just a few more details. We purchased an old FujiFrontier minilab and managed to get it running with a lot ingenuity, blind luck and with help of a nuclear engineer. We named her Millie after the 13th president Millard Fillmore (Film More, get it?) and she can be quite cantankerous, but for the most part we have her behaving. Our plan is that you bring your film to us. 135, 120, 4x5 C41, E6 whatever you got. (Maybe not cinefilm, but ask!) You prepay us and we'll process it, scan it and put it in a private online gallery for you. You can then, download your scans, directly to your computer. The next time you have film to process you can pick up your negatives.

Enlargers at East Coast Film, Wilmington NC

We wanted a full service darkroom that we could use ourselves and use as a rental darkroom. We have two enlargers, one of which is a motorized Besser 4x5. The darkroom will comfortably fit four people at a time, which isn't too bad for a startup. We're going to rent it out to the general public for $10.00 per hour. Bring your own paper, we'll provide the chemistry. One of us, is a genius in the darkroom arts, and he will be giving classes on a monthly basis, for those who need a refresher, or want to learn from the ground up.



I'll still be shooting my weddings, using digital technology, but for my personal stuff, I'll be shooting a lot more film. Gives me a chance to further my photographic knowledge, have some fun, make some new friends and offer a service to the photographic community. Here is a link to the website:

www.sea41film.com

If you're in the area, stop by and check us out. We're open from Noon till 8 PM Monday through Saturday and we're often here on Sundays. The address is 4405E Wrightsville Ave, Wilmington NC.
I'll be updating info on the lab as we move forward.