Hello everyone! My name is Katie and I run the film photography blog Curating Cuteness. While Rhianne is busy taking photographs of beautiful Portugal as we speak, I have taken it upon myself to share with you a little bit about one particular aspect of film photography that Rhianne and I both love: redscale!

In simple terms, redscale is the technique of shooting photographic film where the film is exposed from the wrong side, causing a strong color shift to red due to the red-sensitive layer of the film being exposed first. You can choose to make your own redscale film by winding unexposed film upside-down into an empty film canister or you can, like Rhianne and I, purchase pre-loaded redscale film, particularly the Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 35mm, which has a wide tonal range so you can get anything from red to yellow to green to blue (yes, blue!), depending on the speed and aperture your camera is set with.

If you’re using the film in a toy camera with which you don’t really have manual control, the results are often fiery red because of the high shutter speed. In this case, I would recommend you choose subjects with strong outlines or shadows to maximize the redscale effect.

But if you pop the film into an SLR (or the Lomo LC-A+) with which you can control both speed and aperture, you’ll start to see more yellows and greens like these when you let in more light:

And sometimes, when there is magic in the air, your redscale can become blue! Truth be told, I haven’t been able to replicate these results but one thing is for sure, you need to shoot wide open with a slow speed, the rest is up to film magic, I think!

Photographers: Katie and Rhianne