I recently returned from Philadelphia where I spoke about the deterioration of photographs and the history and technology of color photography and digital prints at “Focusing on Photographs” at the Athenaeum. This 2-day workshop was presented by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), and was taught by myself and three east coast photograph conservators. With nearly 100 attendees and a lot of subject matter to cover, the four of us and the rest of the CCAHA staff were very busy! They will be holding this very reasonably priced 2-day workshop in the Washington D.C. area at some point in the near future. Keep an eye out for it if you’re interested, and I’ll post information on my workshops page when I know more.
 

Our new studio in downtown San Rafael, California gives us a central location in the Bay Area, where we can visit clients and they can visit us with ease. We look forward to seeing you there.

Please excuse my absence from the office in March. I have just returned from a 3-week trip to a private island in Fiji (I highly recommend it!). During this time I completed an environmental survey for a collection of art and other artifacts, as there was concern about the long-term effect of the hot and humid climate in both air-conditioned and other buildings with only ventilation or circulating fans.

The usual priorities of keeping the environment cool and dry still applied, but in a very different way! Success in the tropics is measured largely by the ability to keep artifacts mold-free, while the milder aging caused by slightly elevated temperatures or by a relative humidity between 50 and 65% are simply accepted as a consequence of the tropical climate.

Jim Reilly of IPI is often quoted as saying that "Geography is preservation," and after examining thousands of objects in a tropical environment this month, I couldn't agree more.

I gave a talk with my colleague Zach Long at the Photographic Materials Group Winter Meeting at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ. It was the first public presentation of research Zach and I did together at the Image Permanence Institute in the fall of 2008.

We will be publishing this work in the future, in the meantime, a reference sheet "Ektacolor Paper Backprint Chronology" is available HERE. This is the most comprehensive listing of manufacturer backprints and their dates of use on Kodak color prints, and it will continue to improve over time. If you see something missing, please let us know!

While in Tucson, I also assisted with the Photographic Material Group's first Angels Project. A group of about 20 conservators and conservation students came together for one day at the Arizona Historical Society. We spent a very busy day sorting acetate and nitrate negatives and packaging them for cold storage.

Just prior to my move back to Northern California, I came to San Francisco with Ryan Boatright from the Image Permanence Institute where I chaired a session at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists.