Long Term "Archival" Storage of Negatives & Transparencies

[JDW22]

I wasn't certain where to post this on the forum, so I'll start here and hope the moderators will move if needed to a more appropriate location.

When my father passed away, I was blessed to inherit all his image files. Literally several thousands 4x5 and 120 negatives and transparencies from over 50 years as a professional photographer. While much of his commercial work (aerials & architecture) provide a historic glimpse into our region, it is the hundreds of family negatives and transparencies that are treasures to me. Most of these negatives and transparencies have been stored, in some cases for over 60 years, in paper sleeves. I was looking at some of his Anscochrome 6x6 transparencies from 1956 and they look to be in terrific shape. I do notice that most of the transparencies and negatives are "dirty" with tiny flecks of "stuff" that mostly can be brush/blown off, but some will require additional cleaning.

I now have the joyous task of cleaning, cataloging, and storing these negatives and transparencies. My goal is to create a repository of family history on film for future generations to access and print. Accordingly, I very much want to get this right. I'm prepared to invest the time and money to do this correctly, but would like some suggestions and recommendations on how best to achieve my goal. For my own fine art photography, I store my 4x5 and 120 negatives in PrintFile polyethylene pages and then in the PrintFile Safe-T-Binders. This arrangement appears to have worked well for the past few years, but I want to have a level of certainty that I'm good for the long haul.

Your suggestions and recommendations are sincerely appreciated.

Jeff Welker

 

[koraks]

I'm not entirely confident regarding the integrity of PE past 20-30 years. I have more faith in glassine as long as it's stored under dry conditions. However, this is more intuition than fact, based on several types of plastic containers that my dad used to store different odds and ends that have disintegrated by now (after some 20-30 years). Perhaps the polyethylene print storage materials are significantly more durable, but I suspect they may still become brittle and disintegrate sooner than glassine.

 

[NB23]

Why not contact printfile and ask them all the technical questions? They might surprise you (or not).

 

[DWThomas]

I'm thinking the current PrintFile pages are polypropylene which is supposed to be much better than polyethylene with regard to outgassing and other problems. I'm pretty sure polypropylene has been the archival material of choice for several decades. That said, I only have a decade or so of history with them myself.

 

[jeffreyg]

PrintFile also has acid free paper envelopes ,sleeves and boxes. I think that future generations would prefer digital records since it is unlikely they will want to get into the darkroom and print. Along with the negatives, scans and saving in the cloud and flash drives might be to their better liking. I have negatives in mylar sleeves and glassine sleeves that have kept without problem for over forty years but my children and grand children still prefer digital. What can you say that's the way it is. The generations to come will want it all on their phone.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://www.sculptureandphotography.com/

 

[GRHazelton]

I'd suggest seeing what the Library of Congress says. They have a vast collections of photographic materials, and have the experts to care for them

 

[Luckless]

An overlooked aspect to real archival storage of similar collections of images is often curation of said archive.

All your care and attention given to making sure each and every last image your father left you can survive for hundreds of years into the future will be wasted if in 50 years from now whoever is left holding them has to move across country on short notice for work, and decides to just bin the whole lot...

Carefully sorting and storing the images in sub-collections of related images will do two important things for an archive of such a collection:

1. It makes presenting it far easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
- You're not sitting someone down to wallow in countless photos, many of which they're probably uninterested in.
- It makes finding specific images far easier.

2. It vastly increases the odds of at least some of the images surviving for longer periods of time as you can head off an "All or nothing" mindset for anyone coming after you.
- If someone can't take the entire collection for whatever reason, then they're far more likely to take at least some part of the collection with them if it is already blocked up into handy and sensible sections. They might leave behind the "Five thousand weird photos of Bill with a duck" set, the "thousands of near duplicates from all the birthdays over the years" set, or the "Hundreds of photos of a kid holding a fish", but still take the time and effort to grab "The highlight reel of important family milestones that fits in a carry-on bag" on their way out a door for the last time.

Digital copies also make it even easier, especially if you can be bothered to keyword at least the important images.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

...
Carefully sorting and storing the images in sub-collections...

... vastly increases the odds of at least some of the images surviving for longer periods of time ...

Although my family's photos weren't deliberately sorted, when my grandmother passed away one cousin of mine ended up with about half the photos; I had the other half. When my cousin divorced, his ex couldn't be bothered with a bunch of boxes of photos in the garage, so she tossed them (my cousin didn't really care). So, that was about half the entire collection of photos from Hungary, plus subsequent photos while coming to the U.S. which were lost.

Somehow I'll have to scan and save what I have online somewhere because there's little chance these original photos will be kept when I'm gone.

 

[Kino]

I'd suggest seeing what the Library of Congress says. They have a vast collections of photographic materials, and have the experts to care for them

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/photo.html

 

[JDW22]

Thank you all for your comments and recommendations. Most helpful.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

The PrintFiles that I have used since the early 90s are still fine and show no signs of deterioration.

I've seen a lot of glassine deteriorate. I wouldn't trust it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Depends on the climate. Slick plastic can sometimes gradually ferrotype film if stacked too tightly. I use mostly sheet film and mylar sleeves are available, just as stable as the film itself. But I prefer plain non-buffered but otherwise acid-free archival paper envelopes. But any method also needs a cool dry area with decent clean air circulation. Anyone cleaning out an attic 75 years from now will probably take a look at actual images but just throw out a pile of by-then-archaic discs or whatever indistinguishable digital media. Nothing is LESS archival than digital storage because it changes so fast. How many people still read cuneiform? But we all can see and appreciate actual images, no matter how old they are.

 

[Vaughn]

...I've seen a lot of glassine deteriorate. I wouldn't trust it.

I was always told to keep the emulsion away from the glued seam...FWIW.

 

[DREW WILEY]

A properly-made envelope has the seam and glue on the OUTSIDE, so it CAN'T contact either side of the film.

 

[Vaughn]

Drew, Drew, Drew. Glue cannot work that way -- it has to go between the two surfaces that are to be glued together.

 

[Luckless]

Drew, Drew, Drew. Glue cannot work that way -- it has to go between the two surfaces that are to be glued together.

Rolled seams: Glue the edges of the paper together, bend the paper over once or twice, and glue the rolled edge to the outside of the paper: No glue touches the 'inside' of the space.

Or bend the material so you have two Vs, place glue on the inside of one V, then drop the second V on top: inside of the top V does not directly contact glue.

 

[Vaughn]

Might make for thicker seams, though...and not the way glassine envelopes are put together. The reasoning might be that if the glassine gets wet, any glue migrating thru the glassine to the inside of the envelope will contact the non-emulsion side of the film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

You stack the envelopes alternately. Glassine is pretty much a Stone Age option, like back when big hairy creatures wandered through the redwoods clubbing deer for dinner with a maple tripod. Light Impressions once did a good job promoting these Print File box & envelope systems with a choice of either buffered or non-buffered acid-free paper. Now there are other sources like Archival Methods. It's well thought out. I saw what happens to glassine in humid conditions with my brother's archive in Santa Barbara - a lot of chromes were ruined. I salvaged a few choice ones, cleaned of the mold and sleeve stickies, and printed them on Ciba before it was too late.

 

[Vaughn]

I use glassine envelopes for single 120 negatives I have cut from their strips whne I make platinum or carbon prints from them. The envelopes are 10.5 inches long (designed for strips of four 2 1/4" sq. negatives). I keep the negs away from the seams altogether...and not intended for long-term storage (unless I never get around to storing them otherwise.) I tend to go with unbuffered paper storage also, even tho I do not print in color.

Glassine has been around for awhile...

 

[Wallendo]

If your father successfully preserved these images between paper sleeves for 60 years with great results, that may be a great way to continue to preserve them.

For family archival purposes, only a few images will have long-term meaning. My strategy has been to post images online, as well as make prints and distribute them to family members. So far, neither my daughter or any of her cousins have shown any interest in genealogical photographs, and I fear the negatives I have preserved will likely be lost.

 

[Skeeterfx20]

Negatives - I have everyone since I was 12. In addition I have many that date back into the 1940. These were family negative stored in all kinds of things. Other than some being dirty they all are in great shape. I mean when I say stored any way some were tossed on the bottom of a box, in envelopes, between photos you name.

For years I kept all of mine in the packaging that the photos came back in. Of course that has been a mixed bag.
Today I store them in those plastic pvc free pages for negatives in binders.

For me personaly it is like my family history and have a great value. I don't know what the future will hold for them. After all my efforts to save them they might go out in the trash when I'm gone. I don't worry about it. I figure if someone finds value in them then just maybe they will last another 80 years. If they end up in the trash then at least I enjoyed saving them during my life time.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Of course the glue works like that, Vaughn. There is a folded over flap to the envelope, so that nothing inside it is exposed to the glue. Even an ordinary postal envelope works in that manner. But in this case the fold seam is on the very edge, not somewhere in the middle. Now if the envelope gets seriously wet, you've got far bigger problems to worry about. I realize things are a bit different for the Bigfoot species living outdoors in rainy season, depending on just fur for protection from the elements. Maybe you could wrap your negatives in some spare fur!

 

[ozphoto]

I much prefer glassine over plastic as I had an awful experience with some plastic sleeves that were given to me at college by another student and they ended up destroying the negs they held. Thankfully they weren't something I couldn't reshoot, but it left me extremely wary of plastic sleeving.

That being said though, I do have Printfile negative and transparency sleeves and they are superb - only problem is, they aren't available in Australia and getting them posted is an extremely expensive exercise; postage for the one lot I did buy back in the mid-90s, cost almost as much as the sleeves themselves, and the exchange rate doesn't help either.

If I could purchase a truckload of glassine sleeves today, I'd do it - never caused problems for me in the 30 years I've been shooting film.

Naturally YMMV.

 

[Vaughn]

... Maybe you could wrap your negatives in some spare fur!

I love this place!!! Truely! Thank you, Drew, for what you contribute and its entertainment value!

PS...carried my 5x7 on the pod into the Russian Wilderness this past Thursday - Sunday...about 17 lbs. It was suppossively a 2.2 mile trail. Instead it was 4 miles, uphill, lots of trees down across the trail (burned area). What a hike -- my arms were toast. Exposed 6 sheets of film and will develop them in an hour or so. Hiking out I could put the camera in the pack and strap on the tripod -- piece of cake.

An unusual trip for me -- 10 people (rather than my usual solo), more of a solstice celebration than a wilderness experience -- a great group of guys I have worked with in the past doing reforestation and land restoration work with...most of them still active in that field.

Photo of me taking a group photo in camp and one of me hiking out (Mt. Shasta in the background).

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I wasn't certain where to post this on the forum, so I'll start here and hope the moderators will move if needed to a more appropriate location.

When my father passed away, I was blessed to inherit all his image files. Literally several thousands 4x5 and 120 negatives and transparencies from over 50 years as a professional photographer. While much of his commercial work (aerials & architecture) provide a historic glimpse into our region, it is the hundreds of family negatives and transparencies that are treasures to me. Most of these negatives and transparencies have been stored, in some cases for over 60 years, in paper sleeves. I was looking at some of his Anscochrome 6x6 transparencies from 1956 and they look to be in terrific shape. I do notice that most of the transparencies and negatives are "dirty" with tiny flecks of "stuff" that mostly can be brush/blown off, but some will require additional cleaning.

I now have the joyous task of cleaning, cataloging, and storing these negatives and transparencies. My goal is to create a repository of family history on film for future generations to access and print. Accordingly, I very much want to get this right. I'm prepared to invest the time and money to do this correctly, but would like some suggestions and recommendations on how best to achieve my goal. For my own fine art photography, I store my 4x5 and 120 negatives in PrintFile polyethylene pages and then in the PrintFile Safe-T-Binders. This arrangement appears to have worked well for the past few years, but I want to have a level of certainty that I'm good for the long haul.

Your suggestions and recommendations are sincerely appreciated.

Jeff Welker

I was blessed with a similar inheritance;50-year-old slides and B&W negatives in basement storage.while the negatives are all fine,the slidesw have all but faded.