In a city as famously sun worshipping as Los Angeles, it may seem sacrilegious to ask, but is there ever such thing as too much sun?
When it comes to photographs, particularly very old ones, the answer is a resounding yes. If they are exposed to too much light, whether from the sun or lamps, they can permanently fade, destroying the images forever.
Staff in Getty’s Department of Paper Conservation know how sensitive photographs can be; they don't want to risk overexposing any of the works in the collection. When curators began planning the new exhibition Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer, they realized they had an especially delicate group of pictures on their hands. Bayard, one of the first photographers, began experimenting in the late 1830s when just a handful of people were searching for the best combination of chemicals to permanently fix their photographs on paper or metal.
To determine which of Bayard’s works could be safely included in the show, Sarah Freeman and Ronel Namde, associate conservators of photographs at Getty, turned to a special technique called microfade testing. It’s not exactly a time machine, but it almost acts like one. Microfade testing shows how a picture reacts to light exposure—without creating any damage to the photo—giving conservators a glimpse into what would happen if it were displayed in an exhibition. They can then use this information to decide which images are “safe” to show.
“That’s the goal—to ensure that the photographs don’t perceptibly change during an exhibition, because there’s a point at which we will all recognize that something is faded, and at that point it’s too late to do anything about it,” Freeman says.
Evaluating a photograph’s risk
Photography exhibitions at Getty always take the unique sensitivities of the displayed objects into account. Gallery lights are dimmed, the humidity and temperature are carefully controlled, UV filters on the lights and in the acrylic glazing for framing help block harmful light energy, and photo exhibitions may last a shorter amount of time than painting or sculpture exhibitions.
There are two main methods for assessing a picture’s light sensitivity. One is simply our eyes. Conservators carefully study the images and note where the creator’s style ends and real damage begins. “It’s essential to look at the photographs and understand how things should look,” Freeman says. “And artists have different styles, so with these early makers, you see repeat tonality or minor processing errors. It can be consistent in their work.”
The second method, developed in the 1990s, is microfade testing. Because Bayard’s pictures are so old and were made using a variety of experimental processes, Freeman and her colleagues decided to take this additional step before committing to show any in the exhibition. Most of the Bayard photographs in Getty’s collection had never been displayed before, so the conservators didn’t know how the images would react to being on view. “He was inventing processes and exploring the medium, and everything is handmade,” Freeman explains. “Every photo is unique, because there’s variability in the application of coatings and in exposing and processing the image. All of this can affect the quality of the print.”
It’s test time
With a microfader, conservators aim a pinhead-sized beam of light onto a work of art, then record how it affects the art. The beam is so tiny that even if it does cause the artwork to change, the damage isn’t perceptible to the human eye.
About two years ago, Freeman and her team spent five days testing the entire group of 30 Bayard photographs. One by one, they placed each photograph under a beam of light in three separate areas of the work—different areas can contain various amounts of chemicals and provide varied information about the picture. Each of the three tests lasted about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, the detector inside the instrument recorded the degree of color alteration down to the second or fraction of a second, and relayed this information to a computer while Freeman observed the test area. This data was measured on a scale called the Blue Wool Scale that is based on how quickly swatches of dyed wool change. A blue wool number under two is problematic. Altogether, this data allowed conservators to make a light sensitivity assessment about how each photograph reacted to the test. From there they could decide which images could safely go on display.
How’d it go?
Most of the test results supported Freeman and her team’s predictions about which photographs would be most sensitive. “But there are always surprises, because they are unique, handmade items,” she says. “You see one and think, ‘This looks great.’ Then you start looking at it on a microscale, and test it, and see that it’s actually changing quicker than you thought.”
The testing found about 12 works that were ultra light sensitive, meaning they would change within hours of light exposure. Even with the lower illumination levels in the galleries, they would alter during the exhibition to a measurable degree.
These are two of the images that were found to be too sensitive to go on display.
“For some of these photos, we couldn’t even run the test for 10 minutes—some showed perceptible change in seconds,” Freeman says. Getty’s Imaging Services Department created facsimiles of eight ultra-sensitive works, and those will go in the exhibition in place of the originals (they’ll be labeled so you’ll know which ones they are). The rest of the pictures were deemed safe to go on view, though some will need to have a “resting period” of several years in storage afterwards before they can be shown again. So, this exhibition is an incredibly rare opportunity to view Bayard’s early photographs.
Since Getty first started exploring microfade testing for photographs in 2008, conservators have found that the process gives them the reassurance to display more images than they previously thought possible. Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries are visitors, who can now see, in person, more examples of early experiments and witness the innovation and craftsmanship that once went into the medium.
“Today we have the ability to take a photograph with our phone and have hundreds, if not thousands, of versions of the same image file—but back then, every single photograph was carefully thought out and crafted,” Freeman says. “I hope people will see that photography is an art that’s evolved quite a bit, and that we all get to enjoy it now because people like Bayard took these very first steps.”
Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer is on view at the Getty Center through July 7, 2024.
