‘I used beer and vitamin C to reveal forgotten family photos’ | UK News

When photographer Wayne Large bought his dream camera at auction, he found a roll of expired film inside.

On it were photos of two men taken decades ago.

After an unusual developing process involving beer and vitamin C powder, Wayne has now reunited the forgotten photos with the family of the two men.

The camera is a vintage Rolleiflex, an “iconic” design that Wayne says “every photographer wants”.

The former regimental photographer with the Army bought it from Churchgate Auctions in Leicester.

Inside the camera, Wayne found film that he believes could be 50 years old.

He says that particular type was “only available between the mid-60s and the early-70s”.

It was so old that the process for developing the film is now obsolete, and Wayne needed to get creative with some unusual ingredients.

Developing film with beer is also known as the Beerenol or Beernol process.

The acidity of the beer, combined with the added ingredients, creates a solution that can reveal the latent image on the film.

After researching online, Wayne found that “there was one developer that you could mix up yourself with coffee, and then there was a really great recipe out of beer”.

He mixed lager with washing soda and iodised salt before adding vitamin C powder last to avoid a foam explosion.

Wayne then needed to wait for 20 minutes while the developing process happened in his home lab.

“I didn’t expect anything, and then out came two photos of two gentlemen, and I was just amazed,” he said.

“That film had sat in that camera from the 70s and never been touched.”

Curious to find out more, Wayne shared the photos on social media. He also contacted the auctioneers, who emailed the seller.

Within an hour, Wayne says he received a phone call from the daughter of one of the men in the photos.

The caller’s name was Nisha, and she had immediately recognised her father Shusheel, who has since died. The other man was her uncle Anil.

The pair often travelled abroad for business and may have taken the photos on one of these trips.

She told Wayne that the camera had belonged to her great-uncle and that she remembers playing with it as a child.

“How amazing that you managed to develop the film,” Nisha said. “I’m so happy it’s gone to a new home where it will be looked after.”

For Wayne, sharing the photos with the family was “very emotional”.

“I’m the first person to have seen those images,” said Wayne.

“Even the people that took them never saw them.

“It’s a great responsibility with that to get them back to the family.”

Wayne is part of the steering group at Leicester’s Social Gallery, a community interest company that shares untold stories in an attempt to keep social history alive.

Its director, Joe Nixon, now hopes that more people will send in forgotten film.

“If they’ve got any old, long-lost cameras hidden away in the attic that might have some old films in them, send them in to us,” said Joe.

“We’d love to get Wayne or the rest of the team to develop them and see what can be discovered.

“It’s a forgotten memory, it’s a time capsule, and it’s something that needs to be logged and captured and chronicled for future generations to learn from.”

Joe and Wayne now hope that Social Gallery can then turn these forgotten photos into an exhibition, a film or a festival.

“There’s something incredibly poignant about finding a film that’s never been seen before, and then we’re the first ones to see them, and then getting the family to identify them,” said Wayne.