How to Store and Organize Your Photos
Friday, February 18th, 2011If you’ve committed to interviewing a loved one, doing genealogy research, and in general deepening your family bonds, chances are you are wondering what to do about the hundred or sometimes thousands of photographs you or your parents have lying around unorganized in boxes or albums. Most people have the best intentions for their family photos, but most photos still end up in bad situations for most of their lives. Even when photos are organized, photo albums are often the culprit: placing photos in contact with plastic sheets that break down and release photo-destroying chemicals, sticky sheets that permanently glue and warp photos with heat and humidity changes. Even nicer photo albums with glassine sheets between the pages can break down photos. And then they spend years in attics and basements exposed to heat, cold, high humidity, mold, and flooding. Many are not even labeled.
The good news is that you can change this and preserve your family photographs with a little organized effort. Museum-quality archival products are now available for the same amount of money you could spend on non-archival storage boxes and albums, and many companies makes boxes, binders, folders, and albums for every kind of photo, newspaper clipping, diploma, and pamphlet you have. Before you decide which archival products you may need, you need to consider what you want to save.
Consider a photo album that your grandmother put together. The pages are falling out of the binding and it is too fragile to handle without damaging it further, but when you open it you see her hand-written notes and labels on the page next to the photographs. She placed the photos in this order and knowing that imbues it with a meaning beyond the photographs alone. How you want to preserve the order and care that your grandmother put into the album, along with the photographs, will guide your decision on how to store it.
If you decide that you want the photographs to be as accessible as possible, and you accept some loss from the original album, then you can carefully remove the pages from the album, and the photos from the pages, and place the photos in an archival album binder in polypropylene sheets to preserve the photos, and the paper with labels and notes, in acid-free housing. This allows the photos to be viewed easily. In this new housing, you can still preserve the order and labeling of the original album, but it will lose some qualities of the original.
If you believe that the integrity of the album is too important to disturb, you may want to digitally scan the album (being careful not to cause more damage if possible) or if it is too fragile to scan, take photos of each page. Even as the album degrades further you will have a digital record. You can also slow the rate of deterioration by placing the entire album in archival housing, essentially an acid-free box. While the pages of the photo album are still acidic, the box will help protect the album from environmental damage–moisture, temperature fluctuations.
Let the meaning of the album and your intended use of it guide you in choosing the best method of storage for your photographs. Make sure that you place the photos in a room that has relatively stable temperature and humidity. Usually a room in the regular living area of most homes is fine. Don’t place them in a basement, attic, or areas close to windows or outside doors.
For photographs that are not in albums here are options for sustainably storing and displaying them. Again, think about how the photographs will be used and also how much time you want to invest in organizing them for display and storage.
You can choose the minimalist route and store your photos in archival boxes (about the size of a shoe box). As much as possible, arrange the photos chronologically. If the photos are in the developer’s envelops take them out (that paper may not be acid-free) and keep the negatives. To be extra safe, store the photos and negatives in separate places. You can store the negatives in archival plastic sheets in a separate binder; use a fine-tip permanent marker to write on the plastic sheeting holding the negatives whether you transfer them to polypropylene sheets or keep them in their original sleeves.
Once you have the photos organized chronologically, they need to be labeled. The longest lasting and non-damaging way to label photos is by writing on the back of each one with a no. 2 pencil with a softened point. Unlike ink, pencil will not fade or bleed through. Make sure not to press too hard or else you’ll leave an imprint. You should label each photo with the names of the persons in the photo, location and date as much as possible. If you do not have time to label each photo, use archival paper tabs to label each group of photos.
If you want to be very thorough, in addition to labeling each photo, you can create a hard copy with a list of the photo descriptions. You can create this on your computer and then print out a hard copy so it will be stored digitally and printed out and stored with the negatives or in another place separate from the photos. You can create a simple numbering system to match the hard copy of the descriptions with the photos and their negatives. It might seem like a lot of work, but it is the most complete way to keep keys to your to your photographs in multiple places in case one version is lost or destroyed.
For photographs that you want to share and have easy viewing access to, you can put them in albums with acid-free polypropylene sheets as described above. It’s a safe and very easy way to store photographs you want to be able to look at without comprising their preservation.
Use the process of organizing and labeling your photos to help you decide which photos, if any, you want to display in albums. As you go, if you see photos that you would like to display you can use a little sticky notes to mark them to pull out later (and make a note in your list of photographs, “in album”).
If you have more time to spend on creating albums, you can use more elaborate housing: acid-free paper pages and photo corner to hold the photos in place, rather than polypropylene sheets. These pages allow more room on the album pages to include printed or hand-written notes alongside the photographs. You can choose different kinds of paper and embellishments to include, and there are nearly limitless designs to choose from at scrapbooking supply stores. Make sure that the album pages and binder are all archival.
If you follow this photo organizing process you can be quite choosy about which photos you want to display. You do not have to display every photo in an album, especially blurry, unattractive, and redundant photos. Sometimes a photo is significant even if isn’t the best shot, but you can be the judge of which and how many photos you want to display and which can be stored safely in the photo boxes. If there are photos that you really would rather not even store, you don’t have to meticulously go through the archiving process; you are allowed to throw them away.
Just remember that organizing your photographs can be an enormous project. Take it in steps and give yourself an incentive to keep plugging away. Maybe there is a book on tape, podcast, radio program, or music you would like to listen to while working on your photos. Setting aside even one hour a week will help you tackle the project. You will be doing yourself and your family a great service.
Arielle Nóbile founder of Family Legacy Productions is passionately committed to helping people tell their stories in a way that enriches their life and inspires others. She has directed and produced over 50 private films and interviewed over two hundred people on three continents.
Arielle Nóbile is available to speak in 30, 60 and 90-minute time slots free of charge for organizations on the Front Range. Some of the places she has spoken include Northwestern University and the Association of Personal Historians Annual Conference. More references available upon request. For more information about Arielle and to see a video clip of her speaking go to http://familylegacypro.com/meetus/ and click on the second video link which says “watch to learn more about founder Arielle Nóbile.”
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