Microbial deterioration of gelatin emulsion photographs: Differences of susceptibility between black and white and colour materials

Microbial deterioration is a common problem in photographic collections, and has been considered a major cause of deterioration. However, few studies have been carried out on this topic, and most of the literature concerns biodeterioration of archival documents in general, including both micro- and macroorganisms. There have been no detailed studies on the interactions between microorganisms, environment, and the composition of photographic material. This study focuses on fungal deterioration of gelatin emulsion photographs. It was part of a study of three collections in Lisbon, Portugal. The first part is quantitative research on the fungal contamination of the Horácio Novais collection, and the second involves induced contamination of experiments on gelatin emulsion photographs. At the end these data are analysed, taking into account the hypothesis that colour materials are more susceptible to fungal deterioration than are black and white ones. This hypothesis is based on the observations of professionals working with photograph collections who report that, at least in plastic base supports (negatives and slides), colour materials are frequently more contaminated than the black and white ones. An overall look at the results seems to indicate a higher susceptibility of the colour chromogenic photographic materials to fungal colonization compared to the black and white materials. However, this hypothesis could not be absolutely confirmed by this study.