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

Heat and humidity are the enemies of a negative.  The AC does pretty well at handling both in that it removes humidity and keeps the heat down.  Without it, its much more of an issue.  The problem I have had in the past is if the humidity gets to high, I have had problems with the negative sticking to the plastic sleeve.

If it were just a short time you might not have a problem.  Yet just a drop of water on a negative might ruin your whole day. 

Some of the plastic bins might not let enough air circulate to keep the water vapor  a gas.  IF it finds the right combination, a liquid will form.  The old boys in the backwoods of Tn know this only back there it usually isn't water they are condensing.

A while back I stuck a few clothes in a plastic bin on a camping trip to have dry clothes in the morning.  There was a little rain, but I put them in there in case the tent leaked.  Did I have dry clothes???  No.  The air temp  differences caused the moisture in the air to condense on the inside of the bin.  Though the top was on and the seal was fine, I still had wet clothes.  Ironically the tent didn't leak at all and my clothes were the only thing wet inside.

One other thing I found the other day was a place that scans film negs, slides, prints ect very cheaply.  It was a place where you just shipped them the stuff to scan.  The down side though is they packaged them and sent them to India to get people over there where labor is cheap to scan them.  When done they send them back.  I was surprised at how cheap it was, but I also really didn't consider it either because I really don't want to ship negatives.  You may not have that concern.  Still I think of scanning as tv work.  Its something I can set up and get it started, then go watch TV till a commercial comes on and the reset it.  Back to tv and repeat.  Time consuming yes, but its not like it is really getting in the way of anything else I want to be doing at the time either.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: keeping negatives dry and safe on the gulf
coast
From: Shannon Stoney <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, March 18, 2009 11:48 am
To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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:

> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: [pure-silver] keeping negatives dry and safe on the gulf
>> coast
>> From: Shannon Stoney <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Date: Wed, March 18, 2009 10:09 am
>> To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Hi, every summer I leave my darkroom in Houston and go to TN to be a
>> farmer again. Every summer for the past ten years I have parked my
>> negatives in my partner's office, at the University of Houston. It
>> seemed like a safe place, as it was a relatively new building, with
>> sprinklers for fire, etc. At least, it seemed safer than our old
>> house. But that proved not to be the case: last summer, Hurricane Ike
>> blew the roof of his office building, and his office got really wet.
>> Luckily my negatives were in a file cabinet that didn't get wet, but
>> it
>> was close.
>>
>> So, I'm trying to figure out how to keep them dry in the event of a
>> hurricane this summer. We have a better house now, but it could still
>> get a tree blown down on its roof. His office building is fixed
>> supposedly, but you never know. I have been thinking that I would
>> like
>> to find a storage place, maybe like a rented storage, for my
>> negatives
>> over the summer. What kind of place should I look for? I have a lot
>> of
>> negatives, some in plastic binder boxes, and some 4x5 negatives in
>> paper sleeves in cardboard boxes.
>>
>> I have a fireproof waterproof safe in TN where I keep a few of my
>> most
>> precious negatives, but it doesn't hold very many, and bigger
>> versions
>> of this safe seem pretty expensive. Do other folks on this list worry
>> about flooding and fire? how do you protect your negatives when
>> you're
>> gone, etc?
>>
>> --shannon
>>
>>
>> http://shannonstoney-twors.blogspot.com/
>> http://branguslane.blogspot.com/
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonstoney/
>>
>>
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