I have requested an old portrait of my great grandparents from Mexico and I want to be able to take care of the portrait for future generations. To keep it in top shape and prevent fading or loss of clarity, I’m trying to determine how it was made. But I can’t figure it out and none of my relatives know either. The image is pretty sharp like a photograph but it seems to be done with charcoal on paper. This type of photography/art rendering was very popular in Mexico, but I don’t think anyone uses it anymore. Its weird because the picture/drawing sometimes are faded out, like a head portrait.
If anyone out there is familiar with this style I’d appreciate any help you can provide. Hopefully by finding out the name I can search into care and preservation of it.
It could be a photo done on honest to Og, fibre based paper. The photos you get at the photomat are done on resin coated paper. It’s just as it sounds. There is a photographic emulsion sitting more or less on top of the paper medium in a plastic-like coating.
Fibre-based paper feels more like thick, watercolor paper. It sometimes looks like parchment or looks kind of pulpy (you can see actual paper fibres). It likes to curl up at the corners (sometimes trying to turn into a spiral) so you almost always have to mount it on matt board. So old photos tend to be on a cardboard like material.
Fibre paper has the photographic chemicals impregnated in the paper, so instead of sitting on top of the paper, the images is IN the paper.
This is the quality used in real art photos. I’ve seen some that – because they are kind of wishy-washy and not sharp – look more like black and white watercolour drawings or charcoal.
Does it smudge at all? If you tip it in the light to you see any metallic reflection at all? It is a nice, inky black or is it kind of brownish? In which decade was it taken?
The problem with really old photos that are mounted (completley glued to a thicker white carboard-like material) is that there’s no real way of knowing if the matt board is acid free or not and what kind of glue was used. I always assume it’s not. Modern day archivist use materials that age in a more freindly kind of way
I generally make scans, then I take a photo of the photo using a proper copy stand so there is no distortion, so I have a new negative.
I’m not entirely sure that it’s a photo though. Could you take a digital snapshot and describe how it’s mounted and/or framed?
I’m actually afraid of smudging to test it. The frame is wooden, very unrefined with deep woodcut notches in it. The ink does have metallic glints in it.
It isn’t mounted on cardboard or a matte. Its a bit too large to scan but I will take a photo tomorrow to post. The picture had to have been taken between 1930-1940.
All of my relatives in Mexico always had at least two family photographs done this way.