There are many resources online to help you triage and recover water damaged photographs, negatives, and film. This post will cover some basics and provide you with links to other resources.
Sometimes water damage is out of your control. Extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes and flooding can lead to unavoidable water damage to your home and belongings. In a blog post by our friends at Artifcts, they highlight a family who had moved their valuables and treasured collections to a storage unit when wild fires were encroaching on their home. Then their storage unit was flooded via a damaged sprinkler system!
First, we’ll give you some tips on how to reduce your chances of water damaging your photo collection. Then we will go over what to do if it does happen.
Layers of Protection
The outermost layer is your home. Store your photos and collections in your living space. Do not store valuables in basements, attics, or garages. These locations are more prone to water damage than your main living space. Attics are susceptible to leaky roofs. Basement dangers include leaky water heaters, broken water pipes, and flooding. Large fluctuations in temperature and humidity are also damaging to photos. The safest place in your home would be a second floor interior closet that doesn’t have any pipes running behind the walls.
The next important layer of protection is an Archival Box or a Binder and Slipcase. Archival Tissue and Poly Bags can add another layer of protection within the archival box. Acidic, non-archival cardboard boxes are not a good choice. Here’s a video comparing archival boxes and non-archival boxes being soaked in water. The video demonstrates that archival boxes are much stronger than standard cardboard boxes and they offer more protection.
You might be thinking, what about using plastic containers? It might sound like a good idea but there are downsides. They aren’t waterproof and once water gets in it stays in so the contents might be sitting in a pool of water for some time. Many mass market plastic totes and boxes are made of PVC which off-gases and is not archival. There is also a greater restriction of airflow in plastic boxes and with high relative humidity this could encourage mold growth. If you still decide to use plastic storage containers make sure they don’t contain PVC. Add desiccants to absorb moisture within the box and check and recharge them periodically as needed.
Make Digital Copies As Back-Ups
Nothing can replace an original photo or negative but having a digital back-up is highly recommended. If you are unable to do the scanning yourself, The Photo Managers’ Find a Pro can help you locate professional scanning services. If resources are tight, prioritize your most valued ones and digitize them first. Have several hard drives of your back-ups and store them in different locations in case of disaster.
Water Damage: What to Do When It Happens
If your collection of photos, negatives, scrapbooks, and films get water damaged there are a number of things you can do to try to save them.
Don’t Panic and Always Carry a Towel
Some apt advice from Douglas Adams that applies to many situations, including this one. When something like this happens it can feel devastating and overwhelming. Don’t panic. Take some deep breaths. Stay calm and prioritize what needs to happen and in what order. (And the towel will come in handy as an absorbent material to place wet photos on!)
Speed is of the essence when it comes to water damage. According to FEMA, mold can begin forming on a damp surface within 24 – 48 hours! Mold destroys organic material over time and can adversely affect your health. Even photos, albums, and books that did not get wet in the flood may still be at risk of damage and mold growth from the high humidity. Move them to a dry place with good ventilation and check them periodically for mold and a musty odor.
If you have photos and cannot deal with them as soon as possible then you can freeze them until you have time to dry them out properly.
Safety
Make sure the space is safe for you to be in. If you’re lucky the water damage was from a clean water source (like a sprinkler system) but many times flood waters are contaminated or include waste water. Wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This includes gloves, aprons, closed toe footwear, eye protection, and face masks. A respirator mask can protect against mold and other harmful contaminants.
Supplies
Museums often create an emergency preparedness kit so that if disaster strikes, they have the supplies they need on hand to act quickly. Some of these supplies include PPE and absorbent materials such as paper towels, blotting paper, clean towels, and puppy pads. Plastic boxes for moving and rinsing books and photos. Portable fans and dehumidifiers. Clothesline and clothespins for hanging prints to dry.
Photographs and Film
- Set up a large clean table as your work area with your blotting paper or other absorbent pads. When possible, dry your items indoors to avoid wind, debris, and direct sunlight. Use fans and dehumidifiers but don’t point fans directly at the photos.
- Prioritize what needs to be dealt with first. Prioritize drying prints (photographs) before films (home movies, negatives, and slides) and removing items from enclosures or separating ones that are stuck together.
- When photos and films are wet their emulsions are softer and more prone to damage. Avoid touching the emulsion. On negatives and color slides, the emulsion side is the less glossy side. On prints the emulsion side is the image.
- Do not allow prints or films to partially dry before setting up to air-dry. If necessary, keep waiting items briefly in clean, cold water. Items in albums and sleeves, and ones stuck together will separate more easily in water. And if the water is dirty you will need to set up a rinsing station.
- While very wet or submerged, gently separate photos from frames, storage enclosures, or each other. If they dry out before you get to this it may be impossible to separate them without doing damage to them.
- Remove films from storage enclosures and clip along perforated edges to hang from drying lines.
- If items are stuck to glass or to each other and aren’t easily separating, freeze them until you can get them to a conservator.
- Gently rinse photos and film with distilled or clean water to remove mud and debris before drying.
- Lay out photos on absorbent materials such as cotton towels, paper towels, blotting paper, or puppy pads, image side up, with nothing touching them. Change absorbent materials periodically until the photos are dry. Don’t use newspapers or paper towels with printing on them as the ink could transfer to your photos.
- Some photographic materials such as cased images, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, and tintypes, are very sensitive to water damage, should not be frozen, and may not be recoverable. Air dry them and consult a conservator as soon as possible.
Additional Resources
The State Library of Queensland has some excellent resources. This page has two short videos and several PDFs including Emergency Recovery of Water Damaged Collections and Freezing Water Damaged Collections.
Though written with institutions in mind, these two links still have great information that can be applied to an individual’s collection. The Library of Congress has advice on What to Do When Collections Get Wet and the National Heritage Responders have suggestion for Drying Wet Collections.
National Park Service has a great resource: Disasters – Saving Wet Photographs.
Straight from the manufacturer! These tips from Kodak are more about optimal storage conditions, and address optimal temperature and relative humidity. Storage and Care of Kodak Photographic Materials Before and After Processing
Archival Methods. Yes, we are a resource and we are happy to help! Please contact us if you have questions.
