The Demise of Reciprocity Failure

Longtime TOP reader and not-infrequent commenter Stan Banos has closed down his blog Reciprocity Failure—after discovering a catastrophe with his archive. The long and short of it is that Stan invested in a fireproof safe to protect his lifetime's worth of negatives, only to discover that the safe had trapped moisture inside which encouraged the growth of an unidentified mold or fungus that has attacked the negatives.

  Negative damage: mold or fungus shows up as a "craqueleur"
or crazing on stored negs

Stan is deeply anguished about the possible loss of, or damage to, decades of work.

On the good side, it looks like many negatives can be saved by being cleaned with Edwal film cleaner (isopropyl alcohol). But of course that is painstaking, time-consuming work.

Reciprocity Failure was both a photography blog and a place where Stan did his part to protest and push back against "life's seemingly endless supply of pernicious injustices." Stan acknowledges that, at age 60, maybe this is a good time to be redacting his photographic work...that task which most of us are always putting off till some unspecified future.

You can read the Farewell post at the site. Best of luck to Stan. (And don't be a stranger, man.)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Man: "Whoa, my 4TB drive just died after 14 months. I have full back up on the Drobo so it's not a huge problem and it's the drive that holds the scanned images so at worst, I can always rescan, but this story...ekkk...."

Stephen S.: "When I was researching a fire safe to protect documents, I found many online reviews of people complaining it destroyed their documents due to humidity and giving it low review scores. One lone review commented that the fire safe was designed to be humid, and is actually filled with a layer of liquid/gel in-between the layers of plastic, in order to provide longer insulation against rising temperatures.

"This reviewer stated that all you needed to do was put your documents in Ziploc bags. I ordered the fire safe, and when it arrived, I opened it to discover a large, bright red warning sheet, explaining the humidity and the need to store paper in airtight bags. I can only surmise that dozens of people who complained online didn't take the time to read the warning before discarding it."

Robert Hudyma: "Dark places, warmth and humidity provide a friendly environment for fungus. My heart goes out to Stan for his loss.

"But, how do you recover from this loss? Give up? Do something else? Or go forward? Each of us will respond individually, but, like it not, we cannot turn back the clock, and second guess ourselves with what-if questions. It takes time to heal from these wounds and sadly some of us never recover. In times like this it is important to grieve since that will enable to process to begin healing. I wish the best for Stan, and I hope that he will continue to contribute to the world of image making since I believe that is an essential part of his being."

Stan B. replies to everyone: Wow! They say any publicity is good publicity- but this is some I wish I could have well avoided. Hopefully, it may serve as some kind of warning to others, digital or analog. To those who'll say I should've used desiccant, I did at first, but then read that silica gel isn't meant for long time storage, and when it shriveled up my passport (that I also stored inside)—it scared the bejeezus outta me, so I took both out. And the rubber seals meant to keep water out- kept moisture in....

Irony is, I would've been fine had I just kept them in the proverbial shoebox. As always, Thank You, for the support and words of encouragement. Cleaning the negs was the easy part. If anyone out there can point me towards any info, tutorials, etc. on any restoration techniques (beyond simple cloning and healing brush—I've seen something about using the 'art history brush') that may be of consequence, and/or how to get full fledged PS at the best rate—please, let me know. And thank you in advance....

Comments

[Tom Kwas]

...I found a source for silica gel and always put a bunch into each sealed package of negs and prints, making sure that they do not touch the items...

[MikeR]

My sympathies to anyone who has experienced this kind of silent destruction.

When I was about 30 (when Rock was young and good), I lost 99% of my till-then lifetime accumulation of prints and negatives to an apartment storage locker that I thought was dry, and that I ventured into once in a blue moon. What a mess!

I have a fireproof safe. For some reason, it's a humidity magnet. I keep a humidity gauge in it, and when I see RH going over 50%, I pull out all of the desiccant packs and bake them dry. I do the same with a small media safe.

Corny ending: There's always a fungus among us.

[Will]

What a heartbreaking calamity! It brings me to ask, for the benefit of all interested...

Would investment in Silica Gel prevent this kind of thing? Back in my Los Angeles/Canon days, I bought my first Pelican case to hold my four lenses and 2 bodies (one film, one digital). I was advised by the salesperson at Samy's to get Silica gel, which came inside a vented plastic container. I was told that I should microwave these containers (I had two) every 3-6 months to refresh the silica gel and get rid of collected moisture.

I did so, and continued to do so for the remained of my time using that Pelican. I often wonder if my current bag, a Think Tank Retrospective 7, would benefit from some Silica as well.

In any case, surely someone knows best practices to keep moisture at bay, whether from negatives, prints, or camera gear. I want to know.

[hugh crawford]

There are a lot of ways to get useful images from damaged prints or negatives. There are probably some light wavelengths that are less effected, if not enough to make the damage disappear outright possibly enough to make a deferential mask.

Possibly there is a way to stain the fungus and not the gelatin to enhance the difference.

If not, there is always x-Rays.

[Keith]

Deeply wary of coming off as a drive-by internet know it all but there is another important angle on this that could have also lead to a catastrophe.

When it comes to safes, fire proof does not necessarily mean heat proof.

So, as a general note, there is always the possibility that a safe could come through a fire in good shape. And everything inside cooked to ruin by high internal temperature.

(Disclaimer - for all I know Stan took this into account, and selected appropriately.)

As for the damage that he did suffer, I really don't have the words.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

God luck with this painful situation, Stan Banos.

One thought as you embark on recovery: photographs are not your life. Living is life.

[Jim G]

I know that high quality gun safes also note their heat resistant time and many come with de-humidifiers. However, I have not stored negatives in these safes.

Time to make sure all my negatives are scanned and stored on multiple disk drives.

[Andrew Kelley]

This is awful.

Please note that most fire proof safes are designed to release moisture when exposed to high temperatures. This protects paper from charring, but I doubt it would protect film from damage by heat. To say nothing of a computer hard drive . . .

[Alan Fairley]

Ditto what Andrew Kelly said, whereas old fireproof safes just contained firebrick as insulation to guard against heat, modern ones contain some kind of moisture containing insulation material. Even if you silicon seal the inside seams of the safe, you will end up with high humidity inside it when it is kept closed (I tried and I did). That means they are bad not only for storing negatives but also camera gear.

[Ben Rosengart]

My heart goes out to you, Stan. Best of luck in restoring your negatives.

[Andreas]

"Irony is, I would've been fine had I just kept them in the proverbial shoebox."

Meanwhile I think the proverbial shoebox can serve as a symbol for many situations in life. Often things go wrong, exactly the moment you try hard to make it wright. For example storing money or valuable things on vacations/trips. Instead of trying to find a "safe" place just put it somewhere unsuspicious, like at home... Of course, best is to have as few valuable things as possible.

[Philip Flower]

My sympathies. You ask for pointers to tutorials for using the history brush. Here is a short piece by Ctein on this website which I have adopted into my workflow and which works wonders on spotting problems. Possibly some variation on this technique which he describes could help you. Here is the link:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2007/10/speedy-spotting.html