Sound Snap Film: Photographs Made of Silence

I’ve always been drawn to the strangeness of using film that wasn’t meant for cameras. For years, Washi S has been my favourite, a stock designed initially for sound recording that somehow produces images that are as though they’ve been distilled from silence.

There’s something about the idea of making photographs with film intended for voices, music, static, and noise that still amazes me. It’s as if the pictures are carrying an echo of something they never captured.

Leica M6 | Sunmilux 50mm f/1.4 | Sound Snap film

Lately, though, Washi S has become almost impossible to find. Every shop seems to be sold out, and I’ve been missing that quiet magic in my work. When I came across Sound Snap at Analogue Revival, it was a small gift, another sound film, waiting to be tested, waiting to be repurposed.

This roll has its own kind of hush. The photographs belong to a world slightly removed from ours, a place where time moves differently. The brick arch of a bridge dissolves into darkness, the reflection almost more present than the structure itself. A window set into a wall of deep shadow holding a secret, the security camera above it quietly watching.

There’s a strange poetry in the overlooked details: a ladder rusting against a canal wall, draped in ivy, reaching down into the water but going nowhere. Reeds growing from the water’s edge catch the light and throw back perfect silhouettes, their fragility amplified by stillness. Even a crumbling plaster wall, half brick and half decay, becomes a portrait of time itself.

These aren’t loud photographs. They don’t announce themselves. They whisper, they wait. Shooting with Sound Snap has reminded me why I love these materials so much, because a film designed to capture sound can somehow produce images that are quieter than silence.

Leica M6 | Summilux 50mm f/1.4

Sound Snap film at 50 ISO

Development: Kodak HC110 B at 6 minutes (1 min agitation then 10 seconds agititation every minute), IlfoStop at 30 seconds, Ilford Rapid Fixer (3 minutes & 30 seconds), wash for 5 minutes with AdoFlo II