[pure-silver] Re: keeping negatives dry and safe on the gulf coast

The thing is, I "evacuate" in early May and don't return until September. Sometimes, like last summer, the hurricane came right after I returned in September, and I turned around and went back to TN.

I took some negatives with me last time and stored them at my house in TN, in that safe and elsewhere.

But since my darkroom is in TX, I like to keep most of them in Houston. And I don't want my partner to have to pack them up for me in the event of a hurricane. He might be in TN as well, anyway. So I would like to pack them up in early May and leave them packed up all summer.

If the AC is on, it seems that condensation wouldn't be a problem. If the AC goes out, as it did for two weeks last September, would it be bad for the negatives to be in a plastic bin? Not sure what to do in that case. Maybe somebody could take them out for me and "air" them. They didn't seem to suffer last summer from two weeks of no AC, but they weren't in a bin. Anyway, aren't those plastic binders rather like bins? They seem pretty tight to me. So what would be the harm of putting them in a bin for two weeks or so, even with no AC?

Some of them are scanned. I take my hard drive with me when I leave. But boy, scanning them all: that would take months!

--shannon


On Mar 18, 2009, at 12:52 PM, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

<x-tad-bigger>Well a couple of thoughts here Shannon.  You are smart to think ahead.  When the stress of a storm is approaching, good ideas are often missed because you didn't think of them when everything else has to be done and it just not occur to you till its too late to do anything about it.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger>First is when you leave your house do you have a plan to evacuate the most critical stuff or do you take that with you??  Maybe there is a friend that could come get them and take them with them till the weather has improved or you have returned.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger>The biggest issue might be condensation.  Too water tight and you might have condensation issues to complicate the water issues.  There are tons of plastic bins that might provide some protect for a while, but if it had to set a few days after the storm without power for ac and the humidity that would be there, it could be a big problem.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger>Next thing I would do is to scan it all and store it on several dvds or CDs ect.  Might even consider one of the online back ups too.  Why??   Well even if you lost the negative at that point you could have the film written by a film recorder to create another negative.  Not ideal and time consuming, but better than a total loss.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger> -------- Original Message --------</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> Subject: [pure-silver] keeping negatives dry and safe on the gulf coast</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> From: Shannon Stoney <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx></x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> Date: Wed, March 18, 2009 10:09 am</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger> Hi, every summer I leave my darkroom in Houston and go to TN to be a</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> farmer again. Every summer for the past ten years I have parked my</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> negatives in my partner's office, at the University of Houston. It</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> seemed like a safe place, as it was a relatively new building, with</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> sprinklers for fire, etc. At least, it seemed safer than our old</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> house. But that proved not to be the case: last summer, Hurricane Ike</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> blew the roof of his office building, and his office got really wet.</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> Luckily my negatives were in a file cabinet that didn't get wet, but it</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> was close.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger> So, I'm trying to figure out how to keep them dry in the event of a</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> hurricane this summer. We have a better house now, but it could still</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> get a tree blown down on its roof. His office building is fixed</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> supposedly, but you never know. I have been thinking that I would like</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> to find a storage place, maybe like a rented storage, for my negatives</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> over the summer. What kind of place should I look for? I have a lot of</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> negatives, some in plastic binder boxes, and some 4x5 negatives in</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> paper sleeves in cardboard boxes.</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger> I have a fireproof waterproof safe in TN where I keep a few of my most</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> precious negatives, but it doesn't hold very many, and bigger versions</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> of this safe seem pretty expensive. Do other folks on this list worry</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> about flooding and fire? how do you protect your negatives when you're</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger> gone, etc?</x-tad-bigger>

<x-tad-bigger> --shannon</x-tad-bigger>


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<x-tad-bigger>http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonstoney/</x-tad-bigger>

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