Preservation Resources
Above: Photos of Angela’s archive before preservation efforts began.
Working with Photographs
To learn how to better care for your family photos, documents, and scrapbooks, I recommend browsing and reading the resources at The Archival Advisor and The Image Permanence Institute. If you learn best from person to person contact, invite me to do a workshop for your organization or group, or try your local library’s archivist!
To care for and organize your digital photo collections, I highly recommend Sarah Bay Williams’ The Digital Shoebox. For my photo printing needs (and for the photo exhibition in the film), I use Adorama and choose from their professional, archival quality papers and pigment inks. I’m also a fan of keeping photo backups on my Flickr Pro account, which is also used by the US Library of Congress.
In addition to keeping your photos and precious memories in a cool, dry location with stable temperatures, one of the best things you can do for your collection is to store photographs and documents in archival-quality boxes and albums. Don’t settle for cheap finds at big box stores–you really get what you pay for in terms of photo safety! The following are suppliers of professional archiving products:
Above: Photos of Angela’s home movies during preservation efforts.
Working with Home Movies
Preservation and film care information can be found at the following sites. If you’re also interested in making home movies of your own or in using small format films in your own creative work, check out the other resources on my post about Super 8 Resources.
Brodsky & Treadway –The transfer house for rare, valuable, and fragile home movies. Their companion site, Little Film, contains detailed, downloadable tips and instructions for caring for home movies.
Home Movie Day – A major project of the Center for Home Movies, Home Movie Day is an international celebration of home movies. The site contains lots of information about film handling and care as well as links to home movie day events across the country and the globe. Home Movie Day also keeps a running list of home movie transfer houses.
National Film Preservation Foundation – A clearinghouse of film care basics and resources for more advanced users. Be sure to download their extensive film preservation guide.
If you’d like to learn more about caring for photographs and home movies, or about how to conduct and record oral histories with your family members, consider hosting a workshop with Ashley Maynor.
In addition to screening For Memories’ Sake, for a small fee and travel expenses, Ashley will teach your group or organization how to care for your precious memories. All workshop materials are included!
Email ashley(at)selfreliantfilm(dot)com for more information!
