Salvaging water-damaged photographs in enclosures

Mary Eleanor Miller <mmille23 [at] stanford__edu> writes

>The literature I've come across advocates freezing most types of
>photographic formats whenever air-drying is not feasible. However, I
>have yet to find anything that explicitly mentions whether freezing
>photographs or negatives in their enclosures is likely to cause
>additional damage.

Freezing water-damaged material is generally used to prevent mould
from growing on the wet items if immediate air-drying is not
possible (for example when there is a large quantity of wet items).
It would be ideal to remove external material from the photographs
such as enclosures, frames, etc but NOT at the risk of damaging the
wet photograph. Assuming this was an emergency situation, there
would not be enough time to separate each and every photograph from
its enclosure, then freezing everything to deal with later would be
the solution. Washing and cleaning can certainly be done after
freezing (if you have the time to wash each item, then you would
have the time to remove enclosures). Freezing does not damage
photographic material, but humidity does greatly affect film and
photographs therefore great care should be taken in the defrosting
process (which is also why it would be ideal if enclosures and other
materials were removed before freezing as drying rates would
differ). A very useful website for more information on freezing
photographic material and general care of photographs and film is
Henry Wilhem's excellent 700 page book which can be downloaded for
free from

    <URL:http://www.wilhelm-research.com>.

Emiko Davies
Paper and Photography Conservator
Florence, Italy


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:31
                 Distributed: Monday, February 22, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-23-31-002
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