Ants, or Shit Happens...

[Vaughn]

This may not be the best place to post this but here it goes. I posted this on APUG, also, so no need to read it twice.

Ants. We moved into a new house mid-June. I stored all my print boxes in a seperate room in the garage since I do not have a studio/darkroom set up yet. So I was out there today, looking for a print to send off to Merry England as a print exchange.

I had several 20x24x4" print boxes loaded with window-mounted 16x20 silver gelatin prints stacked on one side of the room (on a counter). Upon opening them, I found thousands upon thousands of ants nesting inside each one.

These are prints I made over the last 20+ years...drymounted on 4-ply rag board with 4-ply windows. They are toast...acidic black ant shit, squashed ants, etc. I moved the boxes outside on the driveway to see what I could salvage. A few minutes later it starts to rain, so I moved the prints (out of the boxes) back into the garage...I am bummed, to say the least. I might have been able to save a majority of the prints if they were not dry-mounted.

It is hard seeing thousands of hours and so much money in the form of mat board and silver paper go up in ants. Most of the prints I can not make again as they are on paper no longer manufactured (Portriga Rapid).

Not too much longer after this, the sun burst through, and what else could I do but stand there in the rain and admire the rainbow that appeared.

Well, many of these prints I have hauled around to Friends of Photography Workshops though the 80's and other workshops to share, so many were no longer in saleable condition, but looked good enough to share with others as images.

The print boxes stored on the other side of the room were fine -- no ants. They contained some of my more recent work of the last ten to 15 years, plus a box containing prints given to me, or in exchange, from other photographers and artists.

I have unmounted copies of most of the work (I tended to make 3 good copies) -- and the ants seemed to have not messed with those boxes even though they were on the same side.

My negatives are safe, I still have my camera, and I am not even making silver gelatin prints anymore. I don't know why the photo gods are messing with me...perhaps it is a sign to just keep on keeping on with new work.

So it goes...

Vaughn
__________________

[Clueless Winddancing]

Well -we've been warned. Do not place irreplaceable valuables where nature can do her wonders. Would a freezer have kept them out? Could they have been stored in a bank vault? Would home-owners insurance have come into play if they had been "declared"? Is it too late to have a fire...? (Don't mind me as I've been working for 19 hours and just sat down to edit the day's images.)

[Vaughn]

Thought about house insurance, but...

1) like donating one's work to charity, I probably could only get the value of the material per print (less than $15 in mat board, mount tissue and photo paper).
2) high deductable
3) might cause a rise in our insurance premium -- negating any money recoverd.

Get some sleep!

Vaughn

[Eric Woodbury]

I do a final tone in DDT.

Sorry about your bugs. Living in Humboldt county, watch out for molds, too.

[Frank Petronio]

My condolences, at least you have the experience of making those fine prints to spur you forward to make even better ones going forward.

If you're a serious photographer you generate a lot of physical material, and short of devoting an extra climate-controlled living-space area room to storage, neither the attic or basement are safe for long term storage. It's just an expensive thing to be able to dedicate the ideal space to.

(Which is why I have half my work in the attic and half in the basement, lol.)

Seriously when I can I try to edit harshly from the eye of someone looking at stuff 20 years old; and I keep my negatives (five feet of binders so far) and best portfolios in an upstairs closet.

[John Kasaian]

I'm terribly sorry to hear of your loss! It is the first time I've heard of ants behaving like that---I wonder what attracted them and if there are any precautions to take that would discourage the little critters?
Are your negatives OK?

[shadow images]

The prints may be removeable. What kind of dry mount was done?

[Joseph O'Neil]

I wonder what it was in the prints that attracted the ants. But thanks for heads up, you have me paranoid about my bbasement now too.

I also have an ant story, but different than yours. A couple years ago in the Florida Keys I was shooting some long exposure night shots out over the ocean. Fell asleep on the beach during one exposure, beside my camera & tripod.

Holy crap - do fire ant bites ever hurt - especially when you sleep on the sand too close to where they nest or forage.

The shot didn't turn out either, but I learned absorbine jr works great on the itch & pain of fire ant bites, just in case you ever need to know.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Sounds like you have discovered "Photographer's Formicary"

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Vaughn, this sucks! Reminds me to keep my place clean! You could always reprint them. I know it would be on different silver paper but who knows? You may have a different vision now. Could some be done in carbon?

Jim