The Disaster of Color Photography

[Sirius Glass]

The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won the Cup since 1967.
And the Vancouver Canucks have never won the Cup.
Now that is a disaster!
There are a lot of artistic endeavours and materials that have finite lives. And some of those lives are relatively short. If there is any "disaster" it is that some expect colour C prints to have the same durability as black and white materials. They don't.

Two young Canadian men suddenly died and went straight to Hell. In Hell they were standing around smiling. That bothered the Devil, who asked them why they were smiling. The Canadians said they were happy because they had never been so warm. The Devil moved them to a hotter place. The men still smiled. The Devil made it hotter and the men started laughing. The Devil turned up the temperature to 3,000°C and the men were absolutely ecstatic. Now the Devil was pissed so he moved them into an area that was -40°C and the men were still happy. Why he asked. They said that they were never that warm when they were alive. So the Devil dropped the temperature to absolute zero, -273°C. The men started cheering, doing chest bumps, doing back flips, hugging, kissing and singing "Oh Canada". The Devil shouted at them "Why are you so happy?" The men said that since Hell had frozen over, the Canucks must have won the Stanley Cup!

 

[Photo Engineer]

PE,
Are you able to throw out a couple or three of those pollutants? I'll assume various sulphur based compounds are troublesome, but I would not be surprised to learn plugin air fresheners are emitting something that is turning out to be bad stuff for photographs.

s-a

Sulfur Dioxide, Ozone, Nitrogen Oxides and a few others I have forgotten OTOMH.

And, some B&W materials suffer from this as well.

PE

 

[AgX]

But these contaminants are not new at all to the industrialized world. Their relative and absolute amounts though have changed.

In Germany all three have been reduced over the last decades.

http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites...70/bilder/so2_jahresmittelwerte_1985-2008.jpg

http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites...70/bilder/no2_jahresmittelwerte_1990-2008.jpg

Many B&W prints kept in archival conditions are deteriorating due to pollutants in the current air that were not considered a factor 50 years ago. Stability testing just began about 15 years ago including those factors.

Assuming the air in the lab being similar to that in the exhibition space/home those pollutants would have affected the stability tests as well.

 

[BMbikerider]

By the way, Kodak Endura is crap, too. Trust me.

You boldly make this statement but do not qualify it in any way - please enlighten us, we'd be pleased to hear. There will be someone who will be able to advise.

However what you say has got to be your own personal opinion. I have been printing on Kodak RA4 paper since around 1991 and will not use anything else. It is stable, I have yet to have any of the colours fade. It does not have a tendancy to show cyan whatever filtration you may use (Unlike Fuji). It may be the chemicals you are using, I have always used Kodak Ektacolor 20 litre kits and combined with buying the paper on a 88m roll (12" wide) I find this is cheaper than digital prints, even allowing for a certain amount of wastage.

On another point. For those of you who also print RA4, a big help is to use a LED bulb with a colour temp of 6500 dgrees Kelvin, that takes out all of the guesswork. They are readily available here in UK so I should think they are available over the pond. The output is quoted as being the equivalent of 75watts but only consumes 13.5.

 

[BMbikerider]

Yes, color images degrade, but that much indicates bad processing or bad keeping conditions. I have prints ranging over 50+ years that look pretty much like they did the day they were made. They were all properly processed, I can assure you. And, Endura is measurably better as is the Fuji Crystal Archive.

PE

It seems I fully agree with you apart from the Fuji paper, that is.

 

[Truzi]

I know snapshots in a family album are not the same as artistic prints on display, but I have a few of my family's old photo albums going back to the 1970s. Color processing and printing was achieved by taking the film to the local drugstore or grocery store to be sent out (as was common for consumers back then). The photos are in albums with those damn "magnetic" pages, and have spent about four decades on a shelf in a smoker's home. Some photos are faded and have changed colors, others look fine.

Simply flipping through the albums suggests the quality of the processing was most likely responsible for the differences. I'm sure they will all degrade some day, but the good ones might outlast me... though I'm on a hunt for the negatives just in case.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Look on the back of the print. Kodak paper and Fuji paper have logos with the name of the paper. Perhaps the generation was different. For example, Ektacolor 20 and Ektacolor 30 were both on the market at the same time and overlapped in some markets. The stability differed markedly in the two.

PE

 

[BMbikerider]

With the Kodak papers I use now there are no markings or names on the back of the bulk rolls. The ones I have from when I started printing came as boxes of cut sheets. They vary in size from 9.5x12 to 12x16 and all odd formats in-between made to suite the image format. I have just had a quick count and there are upwards of 35, a bit dog eared but still with good colour reproduction. They are mounted on a 6 ply card backing then the backing, plus image is mounted in 'window' mounts used in various competitions and a couple I have hanging in frames in my house, so unfortunately I cannot look at the backs.

I have a part used box of now possibly stale Fuji RA4 which does have the name printed on the back diagonally.

What I do know is non of the mounted prints were Fuji.

 

[Photo Engineer]

With no back marking, one cannot tell if it is Kodak or not, as there are a few companies making RA4 type papers.

PE

 

[flavio81]

By the way, Kodak Endura is crap, too. Trust me.

I don't think "Kodak" and "crap" belong in the same sentence. Except if you are referring to Kodak MAX 800 film...

 

[AgX]

But what about that backing paper issue?

 

[RPC]

All I have to do to see how wrong the OP is, is to look at color prints in my parent's photo albums, some going back to the early 60s, that still look great.

My own darkroom color prints going back to the early 80s show no degradation.

Proper processing and storage is the key. If they have faded as in the OP, something wasn't done right.

 

[AgX]

Here the problem starts: What is good storage?

We got advise on storage that fits perfect the one who sees a photograph as asset, and has the means to store it the advised way. He does not bother to look at it. That is one extreme.
The other extreme is a person who wants to see a photograph of her loved ones all day, possibly in a sun lit kitchen.

Who is wrong and who is right ??

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Save the negative. Reprint as needed.

 

[Photo Engineer]

And who saves the negative???

This is a complex problem. Proper storage is 75 deg F and 50% RH with the illumination recommended by the manufacturer.

Processing should include a good wash that shows no red runoff due to retained blix.

PE

 

[Gerald C Koch]

If one s interested in archival color images there is nothing preventing the creation of tri-color separation negatives. There is the stability of B&W and the color images can be reconstructed at any time.

 

[Sirius Glass]

If one s interested in archival color images there is nothing preventing the creation of tri-color separation negatives. There is the stability of B&W and the color images can be reconstructed at any time.

Yes, but it is easier to post defaming thread than to mount the prints archivally, display them out of the sun and away from fluorescent lights, in rooms that are not smoke filled, OR use the negative to make a new print. It is just so emotionally pleasing to condemn a century of others hard work.

 

[AgX]

If one s interested in archival color images there is nothing preventing the creation of tri-color separation negatives. There is the stability of B&W and the color images can be reconstructed at any time.

Concerning works of art in the hand of a collector this is legally tricky in Germany.

 

[Rudeofus]

Color photography was not considered fine art when the folks listed by ParkerSmithPhoto created their work, therefore we can safely assume that their initial work was made under quite frugal conditions. All these experts who now throw around their amazing knowledge were neither interested nor present when these pictures were originally created.

What we see here is nothing but a repetition from what we see with 100-150 year old b&w photographs - from a time when all of photography was not considered art. Before that it was Van Gogh's sunflowers. This is the grim, but just fate of those who think spending five to nine digit amounts on decades old images is "engaging with modern art".

 

[AgX]

All these experts who now throw around their amazing knowledge were neither interested nor present when these pictures were originally created.

That is not the point, but that many (collectors) want their works to remain in or return to the state they bought them.
Whether that is sensible, in the mind of the creating artist or even feasible is the question though.

 

[removed account4]

but I would not be surprised to learn plugin air fresheners are emitting something that is turning out to be bad stuff for photographs.

i wouldn't be surprised if they were not only bad for photographs of all types, but bad for humans and domesticated animals as well !
==
one of the reasons i like lumen prints, sun prints, retina prints &c is because
they are ephemeral to begin with, and if they fade, it's built into the process.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

And who saves the negative???
...

Wouldn't most photo hobbyists and those who are serious about photography save their negatives?

Sadly, my old family snapshots prior to 1960 have no corresponding negatives remaining. However, I've saved the negatives for my photos from the 1970's onward.

 

[Agulliver]

All I have to do to see how wrong the OP is, is to look at color prints in my parent's photo albums, some going back to the early 60s, that still look great.

My own darkroom color prints going back to the early 80s show no degradation.

Proper processing and storage is the key. If they have faded as in the OP, something wasn't done right.

I can identify with this. Just today my mother was bemoaning the fact that some photos of me as a toddler, shot some 40 years ago, and on display since new...have faded. They're still recognisable, indeed there's enough there to take a digital pic, edit in Photoshop and produce a reasonable picture...but they've faded significantly.

The ones from the same rolls of film which were kept in a drawer are as new, as far as I can tell. Thankfully all the negatives exist and have been likewise stored in a drawer. Prints stored in albums, and therefore generally protected from light, are also in great condition. It is only prints which have been exposed to light that have deteriorated.

I would have thought that buying a print as a collector, not that I have ever considered such an activity, has an associated risk that if one displays them...they might deteriorate. I do collect vinyl records, and I accept that when I play them I run the risk of shaving a few £ off the value by thumbing the sleeve, and of course the risk of dropping it between packet and turntable. I accept that risk, mostly because I amassed my collection to enjoy and not as an investment...but nonetheless the risk is one I accept.

In the case of "important" photos, I would darned well hope the photographer kept the negs. I have the negs for practically every photo I took, my father's negs and inherited my great aunt's.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Save the negative. Reprint as needed.

The first thing my ex-mother did when she got a roll of film processed what to throw out the negative. She said that she did not want to waste the space on junk. Many months after her husband died she came to me with a very worn and creased print crying that it was the last good photograph of her husband and could I fix it.

 

[Marcelo Paniagua]

umm I would think it got everything to do with how they had been keep. I got color pictures from 30 years ago that looks just fine, no degrading at all.

Also, I got lots of Polaroid from the 80's. Some of those had faded, some not. Again, it depends on the storage condition. And mine haven't been stored on air tight vault by the way, just regular photo albums Will scan some next week when I get back to my home town.