Hi! We are here to talk about preserving family photographs. Of course, the first most important things are the environmental issues that you need to be concerned with excessive heat, excessive moisture, and excessive light. So, you want to keep them out of attics where it can get really hot in the summer. You want to keep them out of basements if those are humid. Mildew or any of that is a photograph’s enemy and sunlight of course. An example, you put a photograph on the fridge and every afternoon the light pours into your kitchen and heats that photograph. After a few months or a year, the colors would have faded considerably on your photograph. So, you really want to try to avoid those three things.
It is also important that if you can put them into books as quickly as possible because keeping them flat and keeping them separated is also important. As years of them lying together even in the photograph envelop, they eventually will start to stick. The chemicals will start to sort of blend and you cannot peel them apart without destroying the photograph. If you are talking about a family photograph, it is important to identify the photograph as quickly as you can. As soon as you receive your photographs, it is a good idea to write on the back, whit the date was, who you were with or where you were at because in 20 years from now, you might have a hard time remembering. And just imagine yourself looking at a picture where you go, “Oh, my gosh! When was that? I did not realize how gray my hair is.” Or “Boy, have I ever changed!” If you turned it over and you see that the picture is 20 years old, you will go, “Oh, well you know I was 20 years younger.” And you would not wonder, “I am not doing so bad!”
So, that is one of the important factors is identifying things properly so that you can, for generations to come, show your kids; your kids could show their kids. And it really does bring up a lot of great memories to see photographs. It kind of grounds you with reality. It is a great thing. Photos are great!
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