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Ants...or shit happens...

Vaughn

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This may not be the best place to post this but here it goes.

Ants. We moved into a new house mid-June. I stored all my print boxes in a seperate room in the garage since I do not have a studio/darkroom set up yet. So I was out there today, looking for a print to send off to Merry England as a print exchange.

I had several 20x24x4" print boxes loaded with window-mounted 16x20 silver gelatin prints stacked on one side of the room (on a counter). Upon opening them, I found thousands upon thousands of ants nesting inside each one.

These are prints I made over the last 20+ years...drymounted on 4-ply rag board with 4-ply windows. They are toast...acidic black ant shit, squashed ants, etc. I moved the boxes outside on the driveway to see what I could salvage. A few minutes later it starts to rain, so I moved the prints (out of the boxes) back into the garage...I am bummed, to say the least. I might have been able to save a majority of the prints if they were not dry-mounted.

It is hard seeing thousands of hours and so much money in the form of mat board and silver paper go up in ants. Most of the prints I can not make again as they are on paper no longer manufactured (Portriga Rapid).

Not too much longer after this, the sun burst through, and what else could I do but stand there in the rain and admire the rainbow that appeared.

Well, many of these prints I have hauled around to Friends of Photography Workshops though the 80's and other workshops to share, so many were no longer in saleable condition, but looked good enough to share with others as images.

The print boxes stored on the other side of the room were fine -- no ants. They contained some of my more recent work of the last ten to 15 years, plus a box containing prints given to me, or in exchange, from other photographers and artists.

I have unmounted copies of most of the work (I tended to make 3 good copies) -- and the ants seemed to have not messed with those boxes even though they were on the same side.

My negatives are safe, I still have my camera, and I am not even making silver gelatin prints anymore. I don't know why the photo gods are messing with me...perhaps it is a sign to just keep on keeping on with new work.

So it goes...

Vaughn
 
AGH! I am so sorry to hear about this. You must feel terrible.

Re: your statement that most could have been saved if not dry mounted: If the prints themselves are still OK, you should be able to get them off the boards by soaking them. I used to work for a museum exhibit prep. company. We did cataloging, b/w, RA, Type R, on-order dye transfer printing of certain Magnum archives, framing, custom crates, etc., etc. We also worked a lot with antique prints and film, as well as printing for shows. We often would remove prints that had been dry mounted. First, just cut away all the board that you can. Soak the print and over time the mount board will soften. Most of it will slough off with a little pull once it has soaked for a while. The rest has to be carefully "rolled' and "rubbed" off by hand. It is tedious, time consuming, and once in a blue moon will damage the print. Worth a shot since right now they are ruined.

Good luck!
 
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Thanks...I'll go thru them in the morning and see which ones deserve the time and effort to try to save.

And the rest of the print boxes are going to be moved into the house tomorrow, also. The rains have started, I was planning on doing this anyway, since it will be too moist out there in the garage over the winter.

Vaughn
 
When I was going to Brooks in Santa Barbara my wife and I got nice apartment just down the hill, it had everything you could ask for and more. We put a small kitchen garbage container under the sink and settled in. One day I notice something on the wall in the kitchen moving like water, when I got close I discovered it wasn't water but ants, they made a trail across the kitchen floor, up the wall and out a hold in the corner of a window and down two stories. We had wondered why all of the tenants put there garbage outside by the door for the gardener to pick up each morning.

When do you think they got in there, did they hitch a ride or come in at the new house? It's a shame to loose all of that work. The photo God's are saying print, mount and put me in a safer place. I've never restored a mounted print, if you have the negatives it would probably be better to pick out the best of your favorites and go with them. When you get really sick at heart think of Michael Smiths stolen lenses or Ansel Adams darkroom fire in Yosemite. I think Edward Weston had a huge loss at his home too. It's a pia to loose anything, let us know what you will be doing for future protection. I for one am not storing my negatives and prints to survive, it could happen to any of us.

Sorry for you loss of work,
Curt
 
As a side note, I put some valuable papers in a safe I bought, the safe is too big and heavy for the house so I put it in the garage, when I opened it several months later I found the papers like limp wilted lettuce, it might be fire proof but it's not moisture proof, go figure.
 
Curt, the print boxes came from my ant-free studio of my old place (not that there were not ants in the house?)

I am reminded of the photo of Carleton E. Watkins being led down the street as San Francisco burns after the 1906 earthquake. This was the second time he had lost all his photographic work -- and his mind snapped. My situation is is like an ant compared to an elephant. I feel shitty about it, but better after a scotch...

Vaughn
 
If only the ants could drink the scotch and leave us humans alone. I went to the garden shed recently and found that squirrels had torn anything made of cardboard to pieces, probably to build a home in my fir tree. I had ceramic tiles every where as they fell off the shelves, it's a wonder that a squirrel wasn't caught in the mess. I've been thinking since your post that poly sleeves might be good for the matted prints.

If I had the money I'd have a museum storage system with temp and humidity plus fire and bug protection.
 
If the poly sleeves can be used it's not too hard to get a hot wire sealer to close the open end of the poly bag so nothing can easily get to the print inside.
 
That sucks

Hopefully you can salvage some, or print them better with all you've learned since they were last printed. Or, think of it like when a giant falls in the forest which allows the light for a vigorous spurt of growth...

Murray
 
Maybe the black ants are benifiting from the global warming or something because I now have war on black ants in the kitchen as a daily part of my life. It makes you improve your dish and counter cleansing habits for sure. Don't dare leave a drip of anything sweet on the counter at night or I will be over run by ants in the morning. Life never used to be like this before Bush was President.
Dennis
 
My sympathies. You just never know what's going to happen. I lost a lot of early negs once to a basement flood while I was away at school and my parents had moved to a new place and boxes were stored on the basement floor before they knew they had a flooding problem. I culled and rewashed what I thought was worth keeping.

If you've used low temperature mount tissue, you may be able to put the prints back into the press, heat it up, and slip some release paper under the print to take it off, as long as the prints aren't so old that they've become brittle.
 
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MurrayMinchin said:
... Or, think of it like when a giant falls in the forest which allows the light for a vigorous spurt of growth...Murray
Click to expand...

I like that...

Thanks all for your thoughts.

Vaughn

PS...Photo below is one of the worst examples. I used high temp drymount for most of them (Seal MT5) and some are Kodak Type 2...a lower temp, but probably not removable without soaking the matboard until it disintergrates.
 

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  • Ants.jpg
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Ouch! That's really unfortunate.
 
Just an ant removal tip: mix up a sugar water and borax solution and soak some cotton balls in it. Put them in old spice jars with holes in the lids and put them around the pathways of the ants. My father-in law did this religiously and I used to make fun of him- you know, when he'd say "you don't see any ants, do you?" I'd reply, "No, Russ, no elephants either. Is it an elephant repellent as well?" Last time I had ants in the house, I tried all sorts of (low toxicity) ant baits and poisons - no luck. My wife brought out the borax sugar solution and it took 24 hours. Haven't seen an ant since then (six months.) I'm a convert. Seems the borax works like diatomaceous earth in abrading and breaking down the exo-skeletons of the wee beasties back in the nest, where the foragers have brought it to share with their buddies. Kills the whole nest and isn't a danger to anyone or anything else. You're supposed to use boric acid. We use borax and it works fine.
 
If you can trim the mount flush with the print then remount to another board it may be fit for sharing again.
 
I have borax in my darkroom since I prepare my own developers, would that work in combination with sugar and water? is this "the" borax that can keep you safe from ants? I have growing ant nests in my backyard that I want to keep away from my house. Vaughn, I'm really sorry to hear about your loss.
 
I have borax in my darkroom since I prepare my own developers, would that work in combination with sugar and water? is this "the" borax that can keep you safe from ants? I have growing ant nests in my backyard that I want to keep away from my house.
Click to expand...

Same same
 
Vaughn, what a miserable mess. I'm very sorry to hear so much work got destroyed.

To echo 2F/2F - the person doing the mounting of photographs at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts told me once to never use dry mounting. Ever. She gave me a fairly stern look when she said it, so I'm pretty sure she had dealt with problems similar to yours and the lord knows what else.
All the same - it's very sad to hear of events such as these. I had fivehundred vinyl albums once mold away after my basement flooded. As much as I hated it, I could just take my sweet time and buy the albums I missed too much again, while having something you created on your own be destroyed like that is just terrible. I hope you can salvage some of them with the suggestions made.

- Thomas
 
Vaughn

Bummer

Were these carpenter ants? **95% of the colony will be small tiny ants- only the warriors are the giant carpenter ants that we are familiar with out here in Oregon (and state of jefferson!). If so, then borax mixed with sugar won't do anything and you'll have to call in a fumigator...which you will definitely want to do as they are somewhere else in the garage. Carpenter ants are very difficult to find as colonies -- usually you'll see the warriors outside the house (or sometimes inside).
On the other hand, if they are sugar ants, what were they doing in wood fiber (or in this case pressed cotton fiber)? that's very unusual for "sugar ant" colonies which typically hang out (and need) a soil-based nest.

Get some samples and go see the UC entomologist...

Good luck
Don
 
Don, no sign of the larger carpenter ants at all...I do know what they look like, so I believe i am safe there.

These ants have the vinagary stinky smell when you squish them.

Vaughn
 
THEM!
 

want a long term solution to an ant barrier around your house?
Get a couple of bags of diatomaceous earth -- commonly used in swimming pool filtration. Spread that for a couple of feet around the foundation. Stuff gets in their joints - they avoid it. Longer lasting than borax solution which is water soluable.
 
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