50
B+WLOOKING AFTER
YOUR COLLECTION
INSPIRATION
Protecting your pictures from mould, insects and undesirable chemical reactions
requires a little homework, says Tracy Hallett. By working out which materials
have been used where, you can develop a solid preservation plan.W
hen you’ve invested
time, money and,
more often than not,
genuine emotion in a
photographic collection,
the last thing you want
is for it to deteriorate due to poor storage and
display decisions. In order to protect your
acquisitions from mould, insects, rodents,
undesirable chemical reactions and dirt, you
need to undertake a little detective work.
Each item in your collection has specific
needs: an albumen print, for example, will
require different treatment to a C-typeprint, due to the materials and processes
involved in its creation. So, before you put
a preservation plan into action, you need to
identify what you have, how it was made,
and what it was made from.
A photograph consists of at least twolayers: the support and the emulsion (or
binder). The support is the material that the
image lies on (paper, metal, glass, plastic
etc) and the emulsion is the solution that
contains the dyes or metallic particles of
platinum, silver, iron and so on that bear
the image. The emulsion binds these light-
sensitive materials to the support. You don’t
need a science degree to work out which
materials have been used in your collection.
If you know the type of image you own: dye
transfer print, calotype, daguerreotype, then
you are half way there.
If we take a daguerreotype, for example,William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1844. Salt print from a calotype negative – a highly collectable item.© Royal Photographic Society Collection at NMeM/SSPL‘If the glass becomes cracked,
replacing it can be risky as the
surface of a daguerreotype is so
delicate that it has been likened
to the wings of a butterfl y.’50-53_ON_COLLECTING_174 ER/MB.indd 5050-53_ON_COLLECTING_174 ER/MB.indd 50 28/01/2015 10:1628/01/2015 10:16