OUR EXPERT
Mike Bedford has an extensive collection of film-based photos, both his own and those he inherited, so he’s taken quite an interest in preservation and restoration.
Traditional photos, by which we mean the prints, negatives or slides produced by the T chemical processes that predated digital photography by well over 100 years, can be remarkably resilient. In fact, it’s been suggested that, while we might have inherited photos taken by our grandparents or great grandparents, it’s much less likely that today’s digital photos will be available to future generations.
Our reference to resilience requires some clarification, because it’s by no means guaranteed. For a start, while black-and-white photos are based on a chemical reaction involving silver halides, which are moderately fade-resistant, the dyes used in colour photography were not nearly as forgiving. And second, even in the realm of black-and-white photography, the resilience assumes that the prints or negatives have been well looked after. In reality, this might not be the case. Prints have often been well handled over the decades, so creases, tears, fingerprints and tea stains will have taken their toll. And while negatives have probably not been handled as much, in poor storage conditions – at a non-ideal temperature or high humidity – they could have become dirty, damaged by water or infested by mildew, to name just a few risks.
All this sounds rather depressing, because those old photos might be the only records you have of longgone family members. However, there is a solution. Here
