Monday, August 18, 2014

Photo preservation and digital restoration references


On the 18th of August I gave a talk to the Wellington Southern Bays Historical Society in Island Bay about Photo preservation and digital restoration.  I thought it might be useful if  I put all the references I gave out in the talk in one place:

Where to get archival storage boxes and enclosures in NZ

Port Nicholson Packaging in Petone:

http://www.pnp.co.nz/

Conservation supplies in Havelock North

http://www.conservationsupplies.co.nz/

General archiving information

The practical archivist blog has useful information about archiving and sorting your family photos and heritage items

http://practicalarchivist.com/

Both archives NZ and TePapa have information on their sites about sorting and looking after photographs


Useful references for dating photographs

For photographic processes  http://www.graphicsatlas.org/

Also Gawain Weavers' site contains a very useful chart which you can use to help identify the photographic processes employed in 19th Century Photographic prints

http://gawainweaver.com/processID

For NZ photographers since 1840 - the photographic database link is:
RogerVaughan  updated reference to this site 
http://www.cartes.freeuk.com/dec/dated.htm
Some links on clothing styles and fashions
http://www.fashion-era.com/Dating_Costume_History_Pictures/how_to_date_photographs_top.htm

Friday, June 13, 2014

Kelburn Normal School Centenary digitisation and display project

Visitors to this blog will have noticed it has not been updated recently. As well as client projects, I have been digitising of Kelburn Normal School's photographic collection in time for the school centenary which was held in May this year. The Centenary turned out to be a great event with 300 attending on the first night and many more on the Saturday for official opening, viewing of displays, and entertainment.  On the Sunday some returned to take a more leisurely look at the photos.

Kelburn School has an impressive photo collection ranging from formal class and sport photos, to music and drama, events and happenings over the years, plus images of the school and teachers.  To date Carterworks has scanned over 1300 images and that is only to 1998! (It excludes documents and photo key notes).

Over 30 people sent in photos many using the Carterworks file uploader to load images from around New Zealand, Australia and England....so even those who could not make it on the day could contribute. 

From past experience with reunions I knew that having original photos on display was not a good idea, partly because many of the photos were small and secondly photos are fragile and can get damaged. As all the images had been archived scanned to international standards it was easy to convert and enlarge them on to A4 sheets for display.  Admittedly the schools printer was kept busy for 3 to 4 days!  The prints filled over 40 square metres of display area.  The boards were placed in 6 classrooms around the school for the main open day and in the hall on the Sunday. There were so many images table tops and walls were also used..  

Below are some shots of people enjoying the photo displays on Saturday.





The photos were enjoyed by all ages.







The larger prints allowed people to identify themselves in the photos and this started many discussions....


Photo Boards in the hall on Sunday - which gives some idea of the extent of the collection.


The work continues....
From 1998 onwards the school had class photos on display in the school hallways and stairwells.  Those photos not in a digital format (from the late 1990s to 2008) will be digitised over the coming months to complete the project.....

Copyright Carterworks NZ





Sunday, December 1, 2013

Conserving your photos, negatives and slides – getting the right stuff!


One of the problems with photos and documents is they deteriorate over time, and that’s why we digitise and scan as this captures the image/document in its current state. I often get asked how to deal with storing the family documents and photographs. 
It is best to avoid touching negatives, slides and photos with your fingers unless you handle them with tweezers or cotton gloves or round their edges as the oil from your fingers can damage these images.


 Storing images
Good old black photograph albums are not a bad start, at least they keep the photos out of the light.  Ideally though it is best to use properly designed storage containers made from materials that will not react with your images further.  Some images and documents require neutral pH others require calcium buffered containers, so it is best to seek advice about the specific requirements for your images and documents. Google is your friend for finding out the most up to date information and advice for storing your images.

Negatives stored in purpose designed archival pages
In New Zealand I get my storage materials from either:

Port Nicholson Packaging in Petone Wellington who stock the Australian archival Museum storage systems 
http://www.pnp.co.nz/

or Conservation Supplies
http://www.conservationsupplies.co.nz/

Both these places have excellent information about the materials they have on offer on their websites and offer online ordering and delivery.

The National Library  has information about storing family collections including documents and photo's.  
http://natlib.govt.nz/collections/caring-for-your-collections/photographs

There is also information in this handy pdf produced by the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
http://www.conservation-us.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/photographs.pdf
 
 
Copyright Carterworks NZ

Monday, November 25, 2013

An interesting way of displaying your digitized images at a party



Most people know about digital photo frames,but not many people realise a lot of modern TVs can be used in the same way. Recently my dad turned 80. We wanted to do something special for his party. I have been digitizing many of our family photos, slides and negatives.   It was easy to go through the digitized collection and select images to display along with more recent digital photos we had taken to create a personalized digital slide show. It was then a simple matter to load the digital images onto a USB stick and insert it into the USB slot on my parents TV.

The TV's slide-show function automatically displayed each image for 20 seconds.

What surprised me was how much interest this little digital show generated at the party. People enjoyed looking at the images and talking about them.  Many of the images contained family members and friends who were at the party. The TV made a brilliant viewer as everyone could see it easily.  Digitization allowed us to view images from the early 1900s to the present day in one show.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Dating historical photos

What age do you think this photo is?
 
 
I actually have a pretty good idea of the age of this photo, as it is a photo of my Great grandmother and Grandfather and my Grandfather wrote an important clue on the back, which I will tell you about later.  But what if my Grandfather had not given me a clue, how could I discover the date this photo was taken?   

Dating old photos requires some detective work, you have to look for clues.  Factors such as the type of photographic process used; who the photographer was, when they operated, and the size of the photo are all important clues.  For paper printed photos,  the type of mount and the information printed on the back of the mount also give clues about the age of the photo.  The clothing people are wearing the studio setting, the props and background provide additional information.
  
Photographic Process : The photo is mounted on card, it has a slight purple tinge to it and it is smooth and glossy.  The photo is a paper based print and not a negative. This eliminates some earlier photographic processes such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes. When the photograph is enlarged you cannot see the underlying paper texture. This means the photo has at least three layers, which narrows the range of print types to either a Gelatin or a Collodian printed out print.  If it is a Collodian printed out print it will have three layers making up the print and the paper fibres will not be visible when you look up close at the highlights and mid-tones (apart from the damage).  Looking at the photo closely, and combined with the other factors it appears the photo is a Collodian printed out print, a photographic process used  between 1865 to 1920.  That is quite a wide range, so we need to look at some  of the other clues.

Photo mount: The photo measures 4 ¼ by 6 ½ inches (10.7 by 16.5cm), and apart from my Grandfather's handwriting on the back it is completely blank.   This size of photo is known as a Cabinet Card, not a smaller carte de visite. Roger Vaughan, an English collector of early photographs, has identified some useful stylistic mount characteristics of these cards which can be used for dating.   Cabinet cards were often blank on the back in the 1900 period, with no printed matter.  This cabinet card has rounded corners, again this indicates it was produced around 1900, because after 1900 Cabinet cards were square with embossed borders. 

The photographer:  At the bottom of the photo it says Frank J Denton and in brackets (Late A Martin), Wanganui, New Zealand. This suggests to me that Denton may have bought Martin's business. Denton is listed on the Auckland City Photographers Database, a wonderful resource which can be accessed online via the Auckland Public Library site. Denton is listed as operating in Wanganui around this time (at the time of my original search, a little later) and Alfred Martin is listed as being in Wanganui until the late 1890s.  I did a search on Papers Past, in the Wanganui Chronicle 1899 and found a very interesting Public Notice:
 
So I believe Denton had only recently taken over this business when my great grandmother and grandfather had their photo taken.

Clothing Styles: My Grandfather was born in September 1896 and his mother in 1871. She was an assistant teacher. He looks about 3 to 4 years old. My Great grandmother is wearing a masculine styled coat dress with a high collar and the top of her sleeves are quite small and not the large puffy style that was popular in the 1890s, indicating that its a later style.  Consulting a reference on dress styles, in the early part of the 1900s progressive women who were working adopted a more masculine style of dress. Her coat dress was popular in the early 1900s.  My Grandfather is dressed in an Edwardian style. 

It is pretty clear from my analysis that the photo was taken either late 1899 or early 1900 which is confirmed by the clue my Grandfather wrote on the back of the photo:


 "Mother and me at Norsewood about 1900"

Now I just have to work out what they were doing in Norsewood at that time, but that is another mystery to be solved.....

Some useful references:
 
For photographic processes  http://www.graphicsatlas.org/

For NZ photographers since 1840 - the photographic database link is:
Some links on clothing styles and fashions
http://www.fashion-era.com/Dating_Costume_History_Pictures/how_to_date_photographs_top.htm

Copyright Carterworks NZ

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Why people don't smile in old photos

Recently the photoblog PetaPixel ran a little article on the reasons why people didn't smile in early photos.  It appears apart for the need to sit still while the photo was taken there may have been other reasons as well.  See below:

http://petapixel.com/2013/09/23/didnt-people-smile-old-photos/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PetaPixel+%28PetaPixel%29

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Kelburn Normal School Centenary dramatic colour photo transformation

I am busy scanning Kelburn Normal School class photos for the Centenary celebrations to be held in May 2014.  In the 1970s school photographers started offering school photos in black and white and colour. I can see why they did both...they were not sure about the stability of colour photographic processes.....this one is from 1977...


It looked a little red...I was delighted to discover that it responds well to a bit of photoshop magic!

 
 
For information about the reunion go to  http://www.kelburnnormalschool100.com/index.html or the facebook page  at https://www.facebook.com/KelburnNormalSchoolCentenary