Back in 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters taught us a painful lesson about losing family treasures, especially those precious photographs of long-gone ancestors, family gatherings or those fleeting and frozen moments that exist now only in our memories. No one will forget that pile of polychromatic mud that was once the family album.
With these heart-wrenching thoughts in mind, the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Conservator of Photographs and Art on Paper, Nayla Maaruf, has come up with important tips on how to organize and save your photographs from damage or total loss before the next calamity comes our way. She also suggests what to do in case it’s too late and your photographs were damaged by flood waters.
“The first two steps are mentally preparing and then physically preparing,” says the Belgium-born Maaruf. “The most important thing is preparedness. Think about what you have. Make a mental note. If you don’t know what you have in a panic moment you won’t be able to make rational decisions. Think about those loose photographs, framed photographs, albums. Are they in one location in your house right now? Are they in that one drawer in the back of the house? Are they spread out through multiple rooms. Figuring that out is step one.”
The second step, she says, is to create a “central repository” for your photographs and important papers. “Gather everything and put them on a table and figure out if you need a small box or a really big box, or do you need multiple boxes” to store your images. If you pack your photographs to keep them safe from water and humidity and store them in one central place you are less likely to leave them behind during those chaotic moments before you evacuate. “It’s there,” she says, “and they are safe.”
As to where to store those boxes, during hurricane season Maaruf places her box of photographs next to her “go” bag in a corner of her house where she can get to them quickly. During the rest of the year, she places her storage box in a safe location.
“If you are looking for a storage location,” she cautions, “don’t put it in your basement, don’t put it in your attic, don’t put it near a window, under water pipes, or an air vent. What I like about New Orleans shotgun houses is that closets tend to be located on inside walls. Preferably put the boxes on the top shelf or on the bottom shelf out of the way. Those are going to be your best locations.”
To protect each photograph, she suggests placing individual images in mylar plastic sleeves or so-called binder sleeves that can be purchased anywhere. She stores her photos in ordinary Ziplock bags to keep out water and humidity. To help protect photographs from humidity and water damage, Maaruf suggest placing in each Ziplock pouch those small desiccant bags that often come in packaged merchandise boxes to keep the item dry.
“Remember, photographs contain tacky gelatin material,” she says. “When the humidity rises, the gelatin softens and they start sticking to everything. If you have your photographs stacked one on top of another they will stick together when the humidity rises.” They might stick to the mylar, but at least you can still see the image.
She also suggests placing all of those bags in a large lidded plastic container that can be purchased at Home Depot or Walmart. “They are very easy to grab and go,” she says, “and they float in case of a flood.”
But what to do when you return home and find those photos left behind are wet and stuck together?
“If everything is still wet,” Maaruf says, “you may be fine. You want paper towels and watercolor paper. They absorb water really well. Lay the photos out in a ventilated area so they can dry, but make sure they are not stacked on top of each other. If you do need to stack them, that’s where the paper towels and watercolor paper come in. Stack them with watercolor paper or paper towels in between. Clothes lines are great, too. Hang them with clothespins so they can air out. Make sure they are wet and stay wet until you can dry them in a well-ventilated area.”
If the floodwater was dirty and your photos are still wet, she suggests dipping the wet photos in a container of clean water and then lay them out in a ventilated room. To absorb the water, she says place paper towels or watercolor paper under each photograph. “Ventilation,” she says, “is very important here because of the high humidity.”
But what if your photos are half dried when you return? You then have a problem.
“Once they start to dry and stick to each other,” Maaruf says, “it’s hard to reverse that.” She suggests putting the photographs aside and “hope the city or the government has funds to help with salvaging.” A conservationist may be needed at this point. In situations like these, she refers people to the American Institute of Conservation to help find a conservator in their area. “It does come with a price tag,” she says. In case of major storms, however, Maaruf says volunteer conservators often advise people on the right steps to take.
Knowing how diverse the city is both culturally and geographically, Maaruf says she initiated this public service program last year to help “increase the survival rate of photographs for all areas of New Orleans. Certain areas of the city are hit harder than others. I just want to make sure that your history doesn’t go away. Family photographs tell their history. I want to make sure that two generations from now we are still able to tell the correct story of people’s lives. Photographs are a big part of that. They mean so much to people. I just want to see that they survive.”
Maaruf came to the New Orleans Museum of Art, or NOMA, with impeccable credentials for the job, including a master’s and undergraduate degrees in conservation from colleges and universities in the England, Belgium and Switzerland. In 2019, after a brief training stint at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, she was off to the States where she joined the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago’s conservation department as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow. There, she helped prepare photography exhibits and stabilize incoming photographs. In 2022 she joined NOMA’s staff and along with her colleague Ingrid Seyb, co-founded the museum’s first conservation lab.
As a professional member of the American Institute of Conservation and president and coordinator of the New Orleans Preservation Coalition Alliance for Response Network, her conservation efforts extend beyond her role at the museum. Since moving to New Orleans, one of her goals “has been to provide support and programming for disaster preparedness, not only at the museum, but for the wider New Orleans community.”
Maaruf has certainly taken to her new home, its history, and its often-whimsical way of life. New Orleans, she says, is “a welcoming and kind place to live and the community care and support is unlike anything I have experienced before. Living somewhere green all year around combined with a strong porch and social culture, has been a positive shock to the system compared to living places where the fall and winter bring you down half of the year.”
Now, she definitely gets at the heart of New Orleans. “It is also the only place in the world,” she says “you will find a guy playing a sousaphone while riding a unicycle next to the bayou at dusk and no one batting an eye while they pass him.”
For additional information, Maaruf has prepared a checklist titled “Preparing Your Photographs for Hurricane Season” located on NOMA’s website at noma.org
