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AND NOW ABOUT YOUR PHOTOS...
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Most people assume that their color snapshots and portraits will survive in family albums, shoe boxes and picture frames just as well as the old black-and-white photos did. Wrong! If you live another 30 or 40 years, you're likely to outlive your color photos.
So it would be smart for you to shoot some black-and-white film. If processed correctly, it lasts 200 or 300 years. Heat, light and humidity-the chief enemies of photos-harm black and white negatives and pictures far less than they do color. All color film and prints fade. Color prints, slides, Polaroids and videos all slowly disappear to nothingness. Some color images show marked deterioration in only 10 years. Most color photos last fewer than 50 years.
Take a look at your color prints and slides from he 1950s. Have they turned blue or yellow? Then you'll probably get my point. Unless you take precautions to preserve your color photos-precautions that few of us amateurs bother with-the images are likely to be gone in a few generations.
You make be thinking, "That's silly! Nobody will want to see my snapshots in 50 years." (I can read minds.) My rebuttal: look around your house. Aren't some of your favorite possessions the old family photos? Probably some of the black-and-white are from long-gone generations. Just as you love to see those faces, study their features and guess how they lived, your descendants might someday like to have photos of you.
It's important to take at least a few black-and white photos on special occasions, such as births, religious celebrations, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and family reunions.
But as the everyday photos in this book show, black-and-white photography can be wonderful to document the "ordinary" times that sometimes are sublime. I'd suggest you load your camera with a roll of black-and-white to photograph the baby in her bathtub, the little leaguer at bat, your new car, colleagues at work, pets and other 'everyday" photo opportunities.
Some professional photographers will shoot black-and-white portraits and wedding photos, even though demand, unfortunately, has declined dramatically. I know several couples who recently had both black-and-white and color pictures taken and much to their surprise, prefer the black-and-white. They're glad they sought out photographers who were familiar with black-and-white work.
Heat and humidity rapidly age photos. The worst place to store old photographs is in he basement (too damp) or attic (too hot). Fireplace mantels and walls with heat sources nearby also are poor choices. What's optimal is a cool, dry, dark place. A closet shelf in an air-conditioned, first floor from may be best. Keep the negative there too. Black and white negatives last even better than prints, so put them in a safe place too.
Because people tend to display their best photos, we actually single out our favorites for destruction; sunlight and fluorescent light fade photos noticeably in only 10-15 years. Display color photos only if they are expendable or if you have a copy in dark storage. Have duplicates made of special slides and use the duplicates for projecting; the light wears them out.
Do yourself and your family another favor-label your photos. Even a few notes with names, dates, locations and occasions are appreciated when memories fade. Write on back of the photos-never the front- with a soft pencil. Ball-point pens leave indentations; felt tip pens smear. Special pencils for writing on photos are available in photo shops for a small price.
Don't take apart photo albums, not even stranger's albums that were bought for a song at estate sales. Albums reveal a great deal more about the person or family than individual photos do.
Don't try to repair a damaged photo yourself. Soaking curled pictures or taping ripped ones promises disaster. Paper clips rust and ruin photos. Tape grows yellow and crispy, staining the photos. If you absolutely insist on taping photos, at least work from the back.
Select a photo album that will protect your photos, not ruin them as many albums do. Most inexpensive albums wreck pictures. Beware of"magnetic" photo albums, the kind that work by gripping photos on sticky cardboard with plastic overlays. This kind of album causes rapid fading and discoloration. Look for albums that have plastic enclosures of archival quality; the packaging will say that. But he best method is probably the one our grandmothers used:Corner mounts in a scrip book. The glue touches only the page, not the print.
All the evidence isn't in yet for videotape, but its useful life may be as short as 15 years or as long as 50. It is known that videos start to deteriorate after 50 playings. Don't count on them as mementos for future generations. Make a backup copy of a special tape, file the original and show the copy. Then if it breaks or deteriorates, you can make another copy.
If you want to shoot color pictures, use the most stable materials to begin with. These would be Kodachrome slides and Cibachrome prints (which can be made only from slides). Put the negatives for color snapshots in a sleeve so they won't get scratched. A new print can be made from the negative after the old print starts to fade.
If you have wonderful old photos, I hope you'll consider giving them or copies of them to an historical society. Your county society might be interest in local scenes and people; the state society might want your most fascinating photos.
I'm sorry to be so preachy about preserving your photos. But it is a tragedy that the billions of color photos taken every year will be goners. Soon there will be a big gap in photo collections beginning in the 1950s and 1960s when black-and-white photography went out of favor. There will be a lost era in photography-in our photo albums, historical societies, museums and in our culture.
You can take steps to be sure your family photos survive.
We all know photos may also be stored in digital formats, too, either by using a digital camera to take the picture or by scanning existing photos or making frame-grabs from video tape. But a photo may not survive for tens or hundreds of years just because it has been digitized. Images stored on a hard disk may be instantly lost due to hardware failure or a careless erasure. Images stored off-line may become unreadable as new and improved, but non-compatible, hardware takes over. If you don't believe that I have a box of 8" floppies I'll sell you. For those who want to store their photos digitally should make multiple copies (and multiple backups) and be sure to copy archival materials to modern formats well before the old format disappears.
Visit the Minnesota Historical Society Web site for tips on conservation of a range of materials: textiles, books & paper, photographs and objects.
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