Ghost colours

I developed this film in early 2000. It was one of two 620 rolls of C22 film ("Triple Print" brand) found in my mother's basement as we cleaned out her house -- she was moving out of the house she'd lived in for almost fifty years. This picture shows two of her children and a grandchild on her front lawn in about 1972. She no doubt shot it in her 6x9cm Kodak Brownie, a camera she used from about 1942 until I made a trade with her in the 1990s -- a new 35mm camera in return for the little box camera.

The rolls of film were exposed (in about 1972) but put back in their original boxes, which were labelled with "Develop Before June 1973." In 1999-2000, when they were found, C22 film was just about impossible to get developed, so I undertook to develop them myself as b&w.

I developed them in T-Max liquid developer and got barely recogniseable images. I never even contact-printed anything at the time and left the negatives in a folder until this past week when I scanned them.

I scanned them as colour negatives, something I often do with b&w negatives in order to get the best contrast despite the background colour of the b&w film.

I was surprised to see what seems to be residual colour in the image. The colours of my sister's sweater and pants in particular look almost true-to-life.

I have never heard of this kind of ghost-colour on film developed as b&w. I am inclined then to think it is just a scanning accident.

Too bad.