How a print ages

[NB23]

Here it is, if you were curious.

A properly fixed and washed Ilford 5x7 RC print that’s been taped on a cashier desk, in a hairdressing salon, for 12 years.

Yes, according to the Ilford litterature I remember reading, a hairdressing salon is the worst place you can hang a Black and white wet print. The air is just too polluted.

Interesting facts:

- The RC print did start to turn brown and stain very quickly. Within 6 months it was sepia. Within a year, it was in a general bad state. I’d say it decayed 50% within the first year. Afterwards, the decay continued but much slower, until the state in which it is today.

-All other photographs, prints and posters are still intact as they were 12 years ago: I can discern no decay at all, no loss of color, no loss of contrast.

This includes Magazine pages that have been framed, a regular poster, a black and white inkjet pigment print, a laminated poster. A CVS pharmacy 4x6 color print on pearl paper, All look as good as the first day.

—-

I’m kicking myself for not having bothered, 12 years ago, to include a 5x7 RC print which was Selenium toned, and another one Brown toned (reputed for its excellent archival properties). And a FIBER print as well.

The major change occured within the first year. I will make a new experiment involving a well fixed and brown toned 5x7 fiber print which appears to have failed the residual hypo test. I am curious to see how a properly processed and toned fb print, but not very well washed, will stand the test of time and polluted air.

 

[Vaughn]

This is one of the first prints I made -- self-portrait. Printed in the employee darkroom on the rim of the Grand Canyon in 1977. Was in a cheap frame and average Crescent board of the time, and proudly displayed by my parents for 30 years, give or take. A second copy was tossed in with some other prints in a box and still looks as good as new.

 

[takilmaboxer]

I have RC and fiber prints, both carefully processed, of equal age, and displayed in a sunny room for 20 years. The RC prints are sepia but the FB prints look like new. Identical RC prints stored in the dark are good as new.
Go figure.

 

[Horatio]

The portrait of my grandfather I made on 5x7 Kodak RC paper nearly 50 years ago has held up well. It’s in a small frame sitting on a bookshelf at my parents’ house. There are several others in albums I’ve not seen in a few years, but were holding up well. Frankly, it’s a miracle because I knew nothing of archival processing back then. I hope to make wet prints again one day.

 

[Paul Howell]

I have Kodak RC prints from the 70s that look like they were just printed, on the other hand my GAF RC prints are fading. I know that some printed with GAF and their prints held up, not sure what I did wrong.