Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/27

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Subject: [Leica] Storing Negs
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:21:15 -0400

I'll admit I find the Hasselblad List a totally different experience than
is the LUG:  it is far more serious, far more professionally oriented, and
far quieter.

However, unlike Mark Rabiner, I have found myself sympathetic to the plight
of wedding photographers and the storage of negatives.  One problem is the
simple space:  if you have a busy custom, then you are accumulating 10 or
20 rolls a week, year in, year out.  Another problem is proper storage:
they must be kept with some concern for humidity and temperature control.
Yet another problem is the indexing of these old negatives so that they may
be found ten years afterwards.  The whole thing can very rapidly become a
crippling burden to a small shop, much less a solo pro.

The law answers the same problem with a flat mandate:  unless there is good
reason to keep a file, attorneys are encouraged to discard ALL files more
than five years old.  (I hired my son this summer to pulp fifteen years of
files, and he worked each and every day for six weeks and only got through
half of them -- I had a LOT of back files!)

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!