Creating an Archive of Photographic Materials from the Pre-Digital Age

Digital photography has replaced traditional photography so quickly that traditional photography, and the knowledge about how to create it, is in danger of disappearing altogether.

Scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute need your old photographic papers, film, negatives, and prints to maintain an archive of knowledge and materials from the era of classical photography. This archive is a reference collection for future generations of photo conservators and scholars, allowing them to research and authenticate the treasures of the classical photography era.

Surprisingly, the large photography companies—Kodak, Ilford, Fuji, Polaroid, and Agfa—did not save samples of the hundreds of different films and papers they developed over the last century.

We're hoping that you did.

Send us samples of photographic paper and plates, film, negatives, sample books, and dated photographs. We need examples of all types of materials from every year since 1827. So, send us the box of Kodak Elite paper that might be collecting dust in your attic, that Foma film from 1985 that you think you'll never use, or the extra photographs from your 1988 (or 2006!) trip to Yosemite that didn't make it into your photo album.

We need samples that are dated and include the manufacturer's information. Even damaged materials are useful to us if they are stamped with a date and have the manufacturer's name or logo on them.

Examples of materials to send include:

• photographs—don't send us your family treasures; send the extra copies and rejects
• only photographs that have a date and/or manufacturer's name or logo printed on them
• instant photographs from Polaroid, Kodak, or other manufacturers
• unexposed film in the original canisters—black-and-white, color, and Polaroid. If you have the original packaging, send that too!
• unexposed photographic papers—ideally in the original box. If you have an unopened box you can part with, this is especially helpful.
• exposed photographic papers including prints, contact sheets, and contact prints, if they include a date and manufacturer's name or logo
• film, sheet, or glass-plate negatives, and transparencies

Still not sure if you should send us your materials? Read our Frequently Asked Questions, below.

Think you have something really unusual? Below is a list of photographic materials that are especially difficult to find. Donations of these items to Getty’s photographic materials archive would be greatly appreciated.

• Polished and unpolished, commercially produced daguerreotype plates (manufactured in the U.S. or Europe)
• Ruby and amethyst glass substrate for making ambrotypes
• Japanned iron sheets, used for the production of tintype photographs
• Packages of 19th-century un-sensitized or sensitized albumen paper
• Photographic materials from the Autotype company, based in London
• Commercially produced blueprint (reprographic) material
• Cans of commercially produced platinum paper
• Card stock used for mounting photographs, such as cartes de visite and cabinet cards
• Velox photographic paper produced from 1896 to the 1970s
• Color photographs and unused color photographic material (e.g. Autochrome, Dufy, Paget, Finlay, Agfacolor) manufactured between 1907 and 1940
• 1935, 16 mm Kodachrome cinematographic film
• Pre-1940 Kodachrome slides and unexposed Kodachrome film
• Pre-1960 Ektachrome material
• Pre-1950 color material (color photographic paper and film) from the Agfa company
• Dye transfer material and supplies
• Wash-out process material and supplies
• Cibachrome material, photographs, and transparencies
• Fresson process photographs
• Early 1960s-1970s resin coated photographic paper
• Pre-1950s black-and-white photographic paper
• Stereophotographs of different sizes and formats, and unused stereophotographic frames and mounts
• Digital images from impact printers (e.g. Brother)
• Pre-1995 black-and-white and color digital photographs
• Photographic catalogs and sample books (i.e. advertising material)
• All photographic material produced in countries other than the U.S. or Europe
• Traveling salesperson’s sample books of photographic supplies for commercial photographic studios

Send materials to the Getty Conservation Institute at the following address:

Photographic Processes Research Project

Getty Conservation Institute

1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700

Los Angeles, CA 90049-1684

Before sending materials, please read our legal disclaimer below. Include your name and a return address with your donation.

We will send you an acknowledgment once we receive your donation and will add your name to a list of contributors that will live in perpetuity with this important archive. Let us know if you do not want your name added to this list.

Our request for help in creating an Archive of Photographic Materials from the Pre-Digital Age, first posted in 2006, generated a very positive response from the photography-loving public, professional photographers, and art conservation colleagues around the world. We have received a number of important donations of materials, photographs created using various processes, and those from alternative photography practitioners who are creating modern art using many historical and often long-abandoned photographic processes.

Thus far, donations have arrived from throughout the United States, as well as from countries around the world including Canada, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, New Zealand, France, and Argentina.

Since the start of this project, several more manufacturers of traditional photographic materials discontinued production of those materials and our work to preserve the heritage of the chemical photography era is now even more pressing and important.

All photographic materials provided to the Getty Conservation Institute, an operating program of the J. Paul Getty Trust (collectively, the "Getty"), will become the property of the Getty. By providing the materials to the Getty, you represent and warrant that you are the lawful owner of such materials and that you transfer all rights, title and interests in and to the materials to the Getty, including, without limitation, all copyrights, trade or service marks, trade names, rights of privacy, publicity and biography, and moral rights and other proprietary rights, however documented, as are currently owned by you. The Getty intends to use photographic materials for scientific, research and archival purposes; they are not intended to be accessioned into the Getty Museum's photography collection. The Getty shall have unrestricted use of the photographic materials in all media now known or hereinafter devised. The Getty can display, copy, loan, distribute, destroy or otherwise dispose of the materials. Nothing contained herein shall require the Getty to use or maintain the photographic materials or to return them to you. Unless otherwise requested by you, the Getty may acknowledge your contribution of photographic materials by making your name known as a contributor of such materials. The materials are expected to be of minimal monetary value; therefore, the Getty will not provide documentation for a tax deduction. If you want to donate valuable photographic materials to the Getty, please contact gciweb@getty.edu.