What is Photograph Conservation?

Photograph Conservation is the field of study devoted to the physical care and treatment of photographic materials. Photograph Conservation is based on an in-depth understanding of how photographs are made, the mechanisms of their deterioration, and the prevention of such deterioration. Conservators use this knowledge to treat photographic materials, stabilizing them from further deterioration, and sometimes restoring them for aesthetic purposes. It should be distinguished from digital restoration, which is concerned with a copy of the original image rather than the original photographic material, though conservation treatment and digital restoration are often complementary.

Photographic Materials include the products of a full range of image-forming processes from the daguerreotype, ambrotype, and tintype of the 19th century to the gelatin silver and chromogenic prints of the 20th century, and even the digital printing processes of today. There are a great variety of photographic processes that have been used over the past 150 years.

The restoration of a photograph to improve its appearance can be an important part of a conservation treatment, even though it is not the primary purpose of conservation. Enjoyment of the photographic image is generally enhanced by viewing a print in good condition and without disfiguring stains, tears, or other image or object deterioration. Therefore, conservators will try to improve the visual appearance of a photograph as much as possible, while also ensuring its long-term survival, and adhering to their Code of Ethics. In the United States the members of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) abide by the AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice. There are other similar international ethical codes.

Photograph Preservation is an important aspect of conservation. The term generally refers to the preventive care of photographic collections. Recent decades have seen an increasing awareness of the need for preventive conservation through proper environmental control and the storage of items in high-quality enclosures.

Connoisseurship is another field in which photograph conservators often play an important role. Their understanding of the physical object and its structure makes them uniquely suited to a technical examination of the photograph, which can reveal clues about how, when, and where it was made. Technical examination can include polarized light microscopy, examination with UV radiation, and other analytical techniques such as x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) to identify the image metal and or toners, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to identify the binder or other organic components of a print.