By Lisa Klein. Originally published in Luxury Portfolio Magazine, Fall 2021
Archival materials and museum-standard framing techniques help ensure the proper protection of photographs.
Photography captures moments in time and the memories that go along with them.
Whether a picture is of long-gone family members, famous events, cityscapes or nature-filled vistas, it is a way to remember the past and our feelings about it.
“Looking at both the emotional side of photography and the historical side is one of the most interesting things that we can do to study our own personal histories, whether it’s our family or our culture or our world history for that matter,” says Heather Becker, CEO of The Conservation Center in Chicago.
The center restores and conserves art and antiques for private collectors, corporations and museums.
Ms. Becker, an artist herself, cultivated a passion for conservation while studying in Italy and watching chapel frescos being restored. She bought the business years after starting there in 1989, and its efforts have grown from just paintings to include works on paper, sculptures, furniture textiles, murals, frames, rare books and photography.
The Center’s skilled conservators digitally retouched and restored this family photograph, returning the original image to the client along with the archivally printed reproduction.
Photography has been around for 205 years. The Conservation Center has worked on pieces ranging from very early daguerreotypes through ambrotypes and tintypes all the way to modern dry gelatin process photos and digital images.
“The part that I always go back to is the stories behind them,” Ms. Becker says of the photographs that come through the center.
“We have seen scrapbooks which really encapsulate an entire generation of a family, as well as the handwritten notes or stories on the back of the photographs — things that really are a record in time of what that memory is,” she says.
Preserving those memories is both easier and harder than it may seem — a few simple steps are all it takes, but there is more to it than throwing a photo into any old frame, as they are incredibly susceptible to damage.
“If you think about how photographs are made, like a typical gelatin silver print, that is a mechanical process that creates it,” Ms. Becker says. “It’s such a unique surface and it’s also very unforgiving and very delicate.” Exposure to light, water, mold and fire are the main culprits, often caused by improper framing or storage.
When The Conservation Center is tasked with restoring a damaged piece, the experts first identify the type of image, its approximate age and what condition it was in prior to best choose the treatment method.
“One of the major tenets of a conservator is to not do invasive treatments that are going to cause permanent alterations or changes to a work of art,” Ms. Becker says.
Instead, restoration experts use tested methods such as surface cleaning, humidification and drying, flattening and eventually framing the pieces using museum-level materials.
Proper framing techniques can even save a photograph from permanent damage.
In 2004, The Conservation Center was called on to save LaSalle Bank’s 5,000-piece photography collection, which spans the medium’s entire history and is publicly displayed in its lobbies and offices, after a fire raged through the building in Chicago.
What protected many pieces, according to Ms. Becker, was the museum-quality tape seal inside the frames. If not for that, those important historical and artistic images could have been lost forever.
The LaSalle Bank fire in December 2004.
“The thing that is unfortunate with photographs is that if the gelatin layer has been permanently affected or damaged to an extreme level, it may be completely irreversible,” Ms. Becker says. “The other thing that is irreversible is fading.
“You want to catch these things prior to them getting to that point,” she says.
THE BEST WAY to keep a photography collection safe is to look at it often. Knowing how to prevent damage in the first place, and then keeping a close eye on pieces both displayed and in storage, will allow a collector to notice any issues before they become serious.
“You have to really think about prevention with photography,” Ms. Becker says, adding that unlike the memories and time the pictures take us back to, damage to them “is one of those things where you can’t go back.”
Hand-colored photography, popular in the early 1900s, was often an acidic paperboard that is brittle and susceptible to cracking.
Framing 101
Think about not just the photo itself but everything that comes into contact with it — everything touching it should consist of archival, acid-free materials.
First consider the glazing, or the material that the photo is viewed through. Options range from UVfiltering acrylic, through anti-reflective museum glass or acrylic up to Optium® acrylic, which adds anti-static protection and is nearly invisible.
Acid-free photo corners are best for hinging photos onto an archival mat — the piece that encapsulates the photo and sits between it and the glazing. Wheat paste is another reversible option, but contains moisture and should only be done by a professional.
The backing board should never be cardboard or wood, which are acidic. Coroplast® is a corrugated archival material that creates a vapor barrier inside the frame, protecting photos from possible leaks.
Finally, a tape seal should be used to enclose the entire package before it is dropped into the frame and sealed, ready for display. Add a label on the back listing the materials used and the date of framing.
Display & Storage
A photograph’s number one enemy is light exposure. Keep them away from windows or add UV filtering to them and keep the shades drawn when possible. Some people even have covers for their photos and art for when not at home.
Temperature and humidity also need to be controlled. Museums stay at 60 degrees and 40 percent humidity, while most homes are 72 degrees and 40–55 percent humidity. Sixty percent humidity is when mold begins to develop. Photos prefer the cold — museums put theirs into cold storage.
Do not display photos in areas where there are large temperature or humidity shifts — above the fireplace, near HVAC vents, in a bathroom or near a humidifier.
When storing photos, they should be placed in archival boxes not made from acidic cardboard or wood, or plastic which will hold moisture inside. Albums and scrapbooks should also contain only archival materials.
Store photos on the floors where there is climate control, avoiding unheated or uninsulated closets, attics and basements. These areas also pose leaking and flooding risks.
Read the full issue here: Luxury Portfolio International Magazine, Fall 2021
