Nostalgia and passion fuel young couple running old-school photo lab

“It all started as a small passion project,” says Fabriccio Díaz, 28, who, together with his wife Lucía Ramírez, 25, runs the only fully operational photo film development lab in Central America from their apartment in Guatemala City.

“Now we have over 60 clients a month and have developed over 800 rolls just this year,” he adds.

Arca Film Lab has been in high demand this year and is the only photo film development lab in Central America that develops every type of analogue photography film, which includes the rather complicated process of developing positives in a process known as E-6.

Fabriccio, who studied cinematography, explains that the great inaccessibility of high-quality film development services in Central America gave him the first decisive push to learn how to develop his first film.

“When we started experimenting and developing film in our apartment, friends started asking us to develop film for them and it all just took off somehow,” Lucía recalls.

And so, the Arca Film Lab was born in September 2023 as a simple Instagram page offering film development services in Guatemala.

The couple have taught themselves most of the skills needed to develop film by watching YouTube videos and by reaching out to other film labs internationally and asking for tips.

“We were surprised that so many people responded to our questions. A lot of the veterans in the photo development world helped us out by sharing their experiences and tricks. We are really grateful for that,” says Fabriccio.

Fabriccio and Lucía’s love of photography is not confined to developing film, though. The couple also organise “photo walks” in which a group of people get together in Antigua, the old centre of Guatemala City, to take pictures and experiment with old analogue cameras.

For young analogue photography enthusiasts like Iván Ortiz, 22, snapping photos with a camera which is older than he is gives him something modern cameras cannot compete with.

“It’s like having nostalgia for a generation we were never a part of,” he tells the BBC.

Iván says that older people do not always get the recent hype for old cameras and film. “They just don’t understand our perspective,” he explains.

“We live in a world where everything is digital and fast. Through analogue photography, I have to make conscious decisions about my photos and focus solely on the act of photographing. And the best part of it is that you have something physical afterwards, and not just another data file,” he adds.

Having physical photos to hold is also something that Steven López from the US highlights as an advantage of analogue photography.

The 33-year-old is travelling through Central America to document the last traces of Mayan culture and always carries a 35mm analogue camera with him.

“Photography and especially analogue photography is just the best way to document and experience cultures. Every time I get back from travelling and get the developed film back it’s like Christmas!”, he tells the BBC.

The community of analogue photography enthusiasts in Central America may be growing quickly, but the challenges are greater than in other places.

“It is really hard to get analogue cameras here and it is even harder to get them in good condition,” explains 26-year-old Ronald Ottoniel, who went on the photo walk to buy new rolls of film and turn in others to be developed.

And there are other hurdles, too.

Fabriccio and Lucía explain that the process of buying and importing the chemicals needed to develop positive film has been extremely complicated because the import of these chemicals is closely monitored by the state and requires special permits, which has made it a painstakingly long ordeal.

“Many other labs don’t offer the E-6 processing just because it’s so complicated to import the chemicals,” says Fabriccio.

Their business may be expanding, but Fabriccio and Lucía are determined to make sure it does not lose the personal touch and passion which inspired it in the first place.

Lucía explains how sometimes clients “put little sweets into the packages they send us and sometimes we send a handwritten note back”.

“It’s important to us that this is not a mass-producing business, but that every client is [treated as] an individual,” she adds.

Around the world, photo labs use large machines that develop the film almost completely automatically, but in the humble apartment of Fabriccio and Lucía, the process is very much “hands-on”.

For colour and positive (E-6) film the temperature of the chemicals and the time the film is exposed to them has to be exact, otherwise, the entire film roll will turn out badly.

“The beginning was definitely not easy with this entire process, but after developing over 800 film rolls these processes come like second nature to us,” recalls Fabriccio.

“But the first time we developed the positive films, the E-6 process, we were so nervous because we had invested so much in the chemicals and the roll. But when it came out well and we were able to see these lively colours of the positive film it’s always very exciting,” he adds.

Another indispensable member of the Arca Film Lab is Toto, the four-month-old cat that is, according to Fabriccio and Lucía, in charge of quality control and roves around during the entire development process.

The developed film rolls are then transferred from the kitchen to the bathroom, as it is the most dust-free space in the house.

There they dry, to be later scanned in a high-resolution Nikon scanner, which Fabriccio says is the highest-resolution film scanner in Central America.

Fabriccio and Lucía have now also expanded to El Salvador, where they regularly collect and sell film rolls.

The young couple remains ambitious and in the future, they say they hope to establish a strong relationship with CineStill and Eastman Kodak andto expand to developing cine film rolls, which would include a complicated process known as ECN-2.

“It is my dream to revitalise the classical cinematography scene here in Central America! We have so much talent expertise and enthusiasm to offer the world. (…) with Arca Film Lab we have started a movement that we want to push further and further,” says Fabriccio.

All photos by Fritz Pinnow and subject to copyright.