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

“It all started as a small project,” says Fabriccio Díaz, 28, who, together with his wife Lucía Ramírez, 25, run the only fully functional laboratory in Central America from their home in Guatemala City.

“We now have over 60 customers a month and have made over 800 rolls this year,” he adds.

Arca Film Lab has been in high demand this year and is the only film production lab in Central America that produces all-analog film, which includes the most difficult process of producing quality in the process known as E-6.

Fabriccio, who studied cinematography, explains that the high impossibility of high-quality film production in Central America gave him the first motivation to learn how to make his first film.

Lucía remembers: “When we started experimenting and making a film in our house, our friends started asking us to make the film for them and it all just started.

Therefore, Arca Film Lab was born in September 2023 as a simple Instagram site that offers film production services in Guatemala.

The pair taught themselves many of the skills needed to make a film by watching YouTube videos and by reaching out to other film labs around the world for advice.

“We were surprised that so many people answered our questions. Many of the veterans in the world of image development helped us by sharing their experiences and tricks. We are very grateful for this,” says Fabriccio.

Fabriccio and Lucía’s passion for photography is not limited to filmmaking. The family also organizes “photo tours” in which a group of people gather in Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala City, to take pictures and try out old analog cameras.

For a young analog photographer like 22-year-old Iván Ortiz, taking pictures with a camera that’s so old gives him something that modern cameras can’t compete with.

“It’s like having a nostalgia for a generation we didn’t have,” he told the BBC.

Iván says that it’s not always older people who get the latest interest in old cameras and films. “They don’t understand how we see things,” he explains.

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

Having physical images is something that Steven López from the US points out as an advantage for analog photography.

The 33-year-old travels to Central America to document Mayan culture and always carries a 35mm analog camera.

“Photography and especially analogue photography is the best way to document and experience cultures. Every time I return from a trip I bring back a film developed like Christmas!”, he tells the BBC.

The analog photography community in Central America may be growing rapidly, but the problems are more serious than in other regions.

Ronald Ottoniel, 26 years old, who went on a photography trip to buy new films and change them for the better, explains Ronald Ottoniel, 26 years old.

And there are other obstacles.

Fabriccio and Lucía explain that the process of buying and importing the chemicals needed to make a good film has been very difficult because importing these chemicals is controlled by the government and requires special permits, which has made it very difficult.

“Many other labs don’t offer E-6 processing because it’s too difficult to import the product,” says Fabriccio.

Their business may be growing, but Fabriccio and Lucía are determined to make sure it doesn’t lose the touch and passion that inspired it in the first place.

Lucía explains that sometimes customers “put small candies in the packages they send us and sometimes we also send a handwritten note”.

“It is important for us that this is not a mass production business, but that every customer should be [treated as] individual,” he adds.

All over the world, photo labs use large machines that make the film almost automatically, but in the modest house of Fabriccio and Lucía, the work is very “manual”.

For the color film is good (E-6) the chemical temperature and the time the film is exposed to them must be specific, otherwise, the whole roll of the film will be bad.

“The beginning was not easy with the whole process, but after making more than 800 films these methods come as second nature to us,” remembers Fabriccio.

“But the first time we made a good film, the E-6 process, we were very scared because we had a lot of money in the drug and the film. A good film is always a lot of fun,” he adds.

Another important member of the Arca Film Lab is Toto, a four-month-old cat who, according to Fabriccio and Lucía, is responsible for good movement and movement throughout the development process.

Films made of films are transferred from the kitchen to the bathroom, because it is a dust-free place in the house.

There they dry, to later be tested in a high-quality Nikon scanner, which Fabriccio says is the most advanced cinema in Central America.

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

The young people remain ambitious and in the future, they say they hope to establish a strong relationship with CineStill and Eastman Kodak and expand the production of cinema films, which may include a complex process called ECN-2.

“It is my dream to revive the old cinema scene in Central America! We have a lot of talent and passion to give to the world. (…) with Arca Film Lab we have started a group that we want to push forward and continue,” says Fabriccio.

All photos by Fritz Pinnow and are copyrighted.