Preserve your memories forever and for others.
Helping you create safe, searchable and shareable photo collections.
BEFORE
A dry basement. Plastic bins safely up off the floor protecting over a century of family photos and memorabilia from any possible water damage. All is good. For dozens of years.
And then the unimaginable. A massive sewer line break.
Smelly, dirty sewage bubbling up from the basement floor. Four feet of "one's worst nightmare" quickly tipping the protective bins and soaking into every family memory.
Can this family's lifetime collection be salvaged and save them from heartbreak?
Received 9 boxes of photos and items with varying degrees of damage
SPECIALTY SCANNING
SEWER WATER DAMAGED PHOTOS
How the Photos were Prepared for Scanning
As you can see in the Before picture of some of the curled photos, I was going to have my hands full trying to get thousands of them flat enough to place on a flatbed scanner. I purchased my arsenal of items that were going to make this all a breeze. I trained a friend to help with the scanning part so I could concentrate on the more risky and delicate task of flattening and preparing the photos for scanning without doing further damage to them. (By the way, wearing all that protective gear is a sweaty, hot and uncomfortable experience. I have a greater appreciation for anyone that has to wear these as part of their job.)
I got started flattening the photos by laying a batch of them a few layers deep on a paper-covered table and placing large, heavy objects on top. After leaving them overnight, they didn't get flat enough to scan. I tried my second idea but after several attempts, I had to abandon it. I tried my third clever idea. Although it worked better and faster than the first two, it didn't keep every photo flat enough to get an ideal scan.
My final idea of last resort is what worked as you can see in the After photo, but it did take a lot of time and patience. Although I'm going to leave my method a mystery, the results speak for themselves. They are flat enough to easily achieve incredible scans!
Change-O, Presto! Like Magic They're Flat!
HOW WE WORK OUR MAGIC FOR YOU
Success Story
I'm glad I accepted the challenge and we could safely and efficiently preserve much of this family's photo and memorabilia collection. There were approximately 3,000 photos we needed to sort, organize and attempt to unstick and uncurl. In the end, we successfully prepared, cleaned, organized and scanned approximately 2,000 for them. Most of the remaining 1,000 photos were duplicates, near duplicates or blurry photos. The others were too damaged or curled to scan. All in all, they have their most important memories safe and sound. A legacy they almost lost was brought back and given new life.
I did get to meet one of the daughters who came to pick up the photos to dispose of them and she and her family were ecstatic to have their family’s printed photos safely preserved in a digital format. They were sick with the thought that they had been lost forever! And as a side note, she had nothing but praise for Servpro, the representative, Michael, who handled her parents’ project and the Servpro workers. She was grateful for how easy it was to work with them and us to achieve a happy ending!
This was an extremely unique, unexpected, challenging, yet rewarding project of which to be a part. I learned a lot from doing this project that I hope will lead to helping another family in the future that has been hit by an unexpected disaster.
However, the cost to scan damaged photos is obviously much higher than standard scans due to the time investment, the expertise required and the risk to one’s health and damage to the equipment. More importantly, there is the risk that damaged photos cannot be preserved at all regardless of the cost.
A lesson for all of us: Get our printed photo collection scanned and safely backed up in digital format before disaster strikes. It’s the only legacy we have!
Sample of sewage/water damaged photos
AFTER
Personal Approach
Before accepting this project, I had two obstacles to overcome: how to properly deal with any potential health risk and how to get the photos into a state in which they could be scanned. I was informed that some photos were curled and some were stuck together. But mostly, it was all an unknown.
I contacted experts in the field of photo conservation for advice as to whether water damaged photos can be preserved and what the potential risks are when handling them. I spent days researching and talking with anyone willing to share information on this topic. To make a long story short, the risk to one's health can be substantial due to the bacteria and mold. The photos being submerged in sewage would make handling them that much more dangerous.
I discovered that mold will grow eventually on any photo that has been wet, even if it were quickly and properly dried. Although the mold cannot be seen at first it's still there and can become airborne and enter the lungs causing damage if the necessary precautions are not taken. Once the photos show visible signs of mold in the form of black spots, they are too risky to handle. Time is of the essence and the photos need to be preserved as quickly as possible and then disposed of. They cannot be kept under any circumstances.
I was told that following the same practice as those in the restoration business would reduce most of the risk of being exposed to any mold. So that meant safety goggles, Tyvek suit, N95 mask, gloves, and frequent, thorough cleaning of any surface on which the photos came into contact.
The second obstacle to overcome was whether I could get the tightly rolled, curled, warped, stuck together and brittle photos in a state that I could even scan them. And how to do it in an efficient, timely manner. After all, there were thousands of them to scan. The most common way for getting photos uncurled/unstuck involved a long process of placing them, in a humid environment using water in a plastic bin to uncurl them, and then drying them properly so that they would stay flat. The sheer number of photos that needed uncurled made this option an impossibility.
However, I came up with a variety of other ingenious possibilities of which I was positive one of them would work brilliantly. So I accepted the challenge of saving this family's photos. (Photographing the photos versus flatbed scanning was briefly considered, but the photos still needed to lay flat and a professional scanner provides a better quality image, in my opinion. Plus, the time factor of photographing each photo would be equal to or more than flatbed scanning them.)
Customer Collection
This project began in May 2019 when I was contacted by a local representative from a cleaning and restoration service, Servepro, that was tasked with returning this couple's basement back to a clean and safe environment. This company does not offer photo restoration services, but like I after hearing their story, I was moved to do whatever they could to at least try to save some of their cherished photos. The quick action on the part of the restoration workers to get the photos separated and placed in single layers on tables in a controlled environment to dry was heroic. Under the circumstances, they could not have done a better job. Their quick thinking gave this family a fighting chance to save some of their most cherished possessions.
I soon discovered that very few are willing to work with water-damaged photos. I had never worked with them myself or even considered it up to this point, but the thought of a whole photo collection potentially being lost, some items over a century old, caused me to at least consider what I could possibly do to help.
After getting as many details as possible about when and how the photos were damaged, how the photos had been handled since the disaster struck and what shape they were in, I started my journey into researching if anything could be done to safely scan and preserve the items that were saved.
The major obstacle and risk of working with water-damaged photos is mold. And being soaked in bacteria-filled sewage only upped the ante of risk in dealing with them. I had to be certain that my health and that of anyone working with me on this project would not be risked or compromised. There was obviously much to consider regarding all potential risks and rewards.
From Heartbreak to Joy
Water-damaged photos when dried can curl up tight!!