Hello from The Lab!

It’s been a LONG time since we’ve shown our faces here, and following on from the lab’s FIFTH birthday last month, we thought this was a good time to say hello… again! 

We’re Hope, Jack, Daisie & Twig. Between the four of us  we run The Film Safe developing lab. Equal work load and effort of course! 

We founded the lab five years ago during COVID, having both lost our jobs during the pandemic and bonding over a shared love of photography and film. 

With little more than one film photography degree between us and a boat load of enthusiasm (and time!), we’ve gone from a hobbyist set up in the spare room at home back in Feb 2021, to a fully-fledged lab in the centre of Southampton 5 years on in Feb 2026.

But the main driver for our growth and our still being here doing what we love is you guys. Without your support, love, trust (and sometimes, patience) there’s no way we could still be here running our small lab and being a part of the film community that we treasure so much. So, from us to you, THANK YOU. 

Every single roll of film sent has been equally appreciated. Whether you send us film every week, a yearly roll from your holidays or that one dusty film you found in your parents draw. And to all you photographers who have moved on, moved away or put down the film camera. We are grateful to all of you and value wholeheartedly, your part in the life of The Film Safe.

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Whilst this post is primarily a hello and thank you, looking back at an unbelievable five years of film developing. It’s also a look ahead and a mission statement for this year and the years ahead.

When we started out at the lab, we wanted to be social media led and community focused. Throughout the years, we’ve done bits here and there that we’re very proud of. Like our one-off magazine and our photographer spotlights and photo of the month competitions, highlighting and celebrating all of your work and art. 

However, through the early years of running a small business and the inherent difficulties that entails, some of our initial values and goals have faded to the background, overshadowed by the need to focus on the essential elements of building our lab; speed, quality, reliability and consistency in our output, admin and communications.

But this year, we are committed to looking forward, outward and up. We want to focus on extra services and products that further support your artistic visions, curiosity and experimental approach to film.

We're on this front we're aiming to add: Fuji scanning alongside noritsu scanning, border scans, digital contact sheets, large format developing and scanning and E6 processing to name but a few!

We are also driven to do more to put back IN to the film photography community and continue to build on the relationship between lab and photographer. We want to do more to support and celebrate you, as you do for us. We want you guys to feel the love back from your lab! 

We want to kickstart a couple of our previous community driven ideas: photographer spotlights, film funds & maybe even a magazine...

The Film Safe developing lab is now five years old, we’ve been grinding and growing and grateful for five years. Now this feels like a new beginning, the next platform to step up from and look to the future. We’re excited, we hope you are too! 

We hope you can see from the above that this is more than just sentiment and start-of-the-year fuelled enthusiasm. We have plans and we've already set many wheels in motion to bring additions to our services. if you like these ideas or have any further suggestions or recommendations, please comment below. We'd love to hear from you.

Jack, Hope, Twiggy & Daisie x