preserving images

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Large format photography : One Thread

An earlier post from Andre Noble raises some important issues about longevity. His post illustrates the great emotional loss created by the deterioration of a photograph. The answers were all helpful in preserving the image but not the original artifact. There is very little that can be done to restore chemically damaged prints. I can think of no better advertisement for the proper preservation of properly fixed and washed silver prints. They last like new. I think, large format photographers especially those of us shooting portraits. have an obligation to that level of preservation. Even the most mundane image may turn into someone's priceless heirloom. Digital reproduction has its limits, there is simply so substitute for the vintage print. Realizing that my photographs may proudly hang on someone's wall 150 years from now is an important part of what I do. they won't hang there because they are great pictures but because they are well made prints of a certain ancester. I will have transmitted something very special from now to then. Now to find a market.

-- jim ryder (j.ryder@verizon.net), March 16, 2002

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