Re: preservation of negatives/slides/prints
I've been doing this myself for the past six months, with my dad's collection. How big is it? How old? How had it been stored? If it is very large, you probably will want to do some sort of inventory so you know what you've got - and identify those prints for which you've got negs from those for which you haven't. My dad left 18,000 images dating back to the early 1940s, plus stuff shot by his parents in the 1920s and 1930s. He closely attended slides and 6x9 negs, but left most of his 35mm color negs in their Walgreens sleeves. So some of it is orderly and well cared for, while some got dumped in piles. If your collection is very old, you might start by assessing the condition of individual images. I found that some of my dad's oldest b&w negs might possibly have some fungus - hard to tell because they also seem to have "plated" in some way I'm not qualified to assess. Also, some of his Ektachrome slides from the late '50s fared horribly. Veru mamy of them have undergone fading of blue and green. These may be the first I scan, just to get something down. Then again, given the size of this collection, I might first scan attack those that are not as badly deteriorated, so I get them while they're still healthy. One issue I have with my dad's oldest b&w negs (mostly 620 and some similar format I haven't ID'd) is that he used glassine envelopes. Some of these envelopes, dating to the mid-40s, have yellowed. There are a couple interesting threads about this topic on the internet. I personally haven't given a lot of time to his prints, especially the color ones. There are thousands of them. I decided that where I do have the negs or slides, I don't so much care about the prints. His earliest prints from his '40s and '50s negs will be an exception. And of course the prints he had that did NOT come from one of his own negs are a different matter. You would want to identify these, probably handle them with more attention than all those Walgreen's prints of his 35mm negs. Another good reason to make an inventory. Mike On 18 Mar 2007 at 11:10, Diana Bloomfield wrote: Date sent: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:10:13 -0400 From: Diana Bloomfield <dhbloomfield@bellsouth.net> Subject: preservation of negatives/slides/prints To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca Send reply to: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca > Hi all, > > A photographer friend of mine died recently, and her husband > contacted me about her prints, negatives, and slides. He wants to be > able to archivally preserve those for her kids and asked me about > the best way to go about doing that. My immediate answer is to > simply place everything in the appropriate archival storage sleeves, > place in an archival storage box, and keep away from light and heat. > Am I missing something? Does anybody have other advice? I'm > assuming the prints would be the most vulnerable to fading and > damage, but is it worth scanning everything to digital format? I > realize we might not be using CDs in 10 years time, or less, but I > assume whatever we are using could be copied again. Anyway . . . if > anybody has any better suggestions, let me know. > > Thanks! > > Diana
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