The U.S. National Park Service Heritage Documentation Program (HDP) has a 2023 (new) website with specific guidance for the first time on donation of materials for those who are interested in historic American sites and large format photography. I have been doing HABS/HAER/HALS (H3) projects for years, some of them were paid and some of them simply donated. Of the 360,000 negatives at the Library of Congress, a little over a thousand are mine. I believe the program is a wealth of knowledge and an educational treasure trove for all, including its biggest users, the K-12 students that are the most frequent users of the Library of Congress H3 collections. Excuse my enthusiasm, I tend to come across as a bit of a H3 cheerleader. I think this is relevant to some large format photographers because (at this time in 2023) the requirement for acceptance of photographs to the Library of Congress is that the images be taken on 4x5, 5x7 or 8x10 black and white film.

The donations page of the website is here: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritag...umentation.htm

The header of the Park Service webpages have links to details about the facets of the program and the HDP Photography Guidelines: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritag...guidelines.htm

For those of you that don't want to follow a bunch of links, here's the basics from my HABS FAQ:

WHAT IS HABS HAER & HALS PHOTOGRAPHY?

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), are US federal government programs administered by the Heritage Documentation Programs Department of the National Park Service. In short, these programs document the historic architecture, built technology and cultural landscapes in America and work with the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division to archive the architectural plans, historic reports and photographs for the public in perpetuity, all records are in the public domain for all to use. H3 are considered the gold standard of photographic documentation programs.

IS FILM STILL REQUIRED IN 2024?

Yes, large format, black and white film is still the only medium that meets the photography guidelines for inclusion into the H3 collections. Photographs from digital cameras (known as born-digital) do not yet meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Architectural, Engineering and Landscape Documentation (new born-digital HABS guidelines are being developed in 2024).

CAN ANY PHOTOGRAPHER DO HABS/HAER/HALS?

The H3 photography guidelines can be downloaded from the NPS website. The photographer should keep field notes, maps, and often also is responsible for color field photos and GPS coordinates of the recorded sites. It should be noted that the guidelines for recording, processing, scanning, printing and transmitting H3 surveys (32 Page PDF) are rigorous and it takes some time to master the logistics. HDP has rejected documentations that were not deemed complete or not properly processed, formatted or printed to meet archival specifications.

DOES THE PHOTOGRAPHER KEEP THEIR COPYRIGHT?

The HABS guidelines require all records to be in the public domain when transmitted to the H3 collections. The original negatives are sent to the Library of Congress, any photographer wanting to keep the negatives should make duplicates in the field on additional sheets of film. A signed copyright release is required with every H3 transmittal.

Excerpted from the HABS FAQ: https://schafphoto.typepad.com/habs_haer_hals-faq/

You may already have perspective corrected negatives of historic buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, or buildings that have been demolished like Parker Center Police Headquarters. You may want to look into donation of some of those negatives at the above links. I find it fun to think of what someone in 100, 300, 500 years will think of our "ancient" photographs, what books they might be published in, or what 7th grade research papers they might illustrate.

To find documented sites you can search and download high resolution Tiff files of the negatives in the H3 collection here at the Library of Congress website:
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/


HABS CA-2923-10 Front Facade of Parker Center, Los Angeles Police Headquarters, March 2018, (one year before demolition).