[Leica] Re: if you really want your pictures to last

[Summicron1 at aol.com (Summicron1@aol.com)]

In a message dated 5/1/04 6:04:42 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org writes:


> 
> All I'm trying to say - nothing will last forever even if properly stored. 
> and most things will deteriorate because they won't be properly stored. and 
> the technology for accessing "whatever" will become harder and harder to save 
> and migrate - especially if you haven't kept up with the migration in a steady 
> way.
> 

if you really want your images to last, figure out a way to put them on clay. 
Clay tablets have been found from ancient mesopotamian civilizations dating 
back to several th ousand years BC.

Next best? Papyrus. Many ancient examples also exist.

Next Best? Good quality paper. 100 percent Cotton bond paper -- which is what 
photo paper is -- holds up extremely well despite more than 170 years of 
history, and counting. My sister, a chemist in the conservation department of the 
Detroit Institute of Arts, soon to be working at the Getty in LA (bragging, 
sure, but she knows her stuff) says if you really really want anything to last, 
those are your best bets. As nearly chemically inert as possible, as easily 
accessible as possible. Paper that is a thousand years old is still around, 
check out your local museum.   Gutenberg Bible anyone?

All your technological solutions that come up in these debates usually fail 
on that second point -- it ain't archival if you can't access it, and nothing 
is more accessable than an image on a piece of paper. An actual image is what 
all you digital technocrats are trying to duplicate and "preserve"with your dvd 
and cd and what not solutions, but those are all passing fancies, ifyou look 
at the big picture. My old Edison records (1920s) are more playable than a 
digital image stored on techcnology only 30 years old.

Paper is the more durable, too. In the 1870s newspapers in Utah were printed 
on rag paper because what with this being a desert and all, rag cotton was 
easier to find than wood pulp. I have some of those papers in my collection and 
they are still flexible, readable, slightly aged because of astonishingly poor 
storage conditions, but still holding up marvelously, not brittle at all like 
wood pulp paper.

so, want your images to last? Dig out the darkroom trays.

ctrentelman