World Photo Day: How to Properly Store Old Photos and Photo Albums

For many, old family photos represent decades upon decades of good memories; as well as an insight into the family member’s lives that came before ours. That’s why it would be devastating to have years worth of memories lost to the wear and tear of being stored in a shoebox under the bed.

Believing in the power of photography to have a positive impact on the community, World Photo Day is on August 19th and we’re looking to take part by sharing our tips to storing your old photographs.

Whether you’d like to properly organise your photo albums or move them into safe and secure storage; Store That Self Storage East London have a few tips and tricks to keeping your photos safe.

There a few important things to remember when storing your photos - even if that is in a secure storage unit.

1. Ventilation - It’s important to keep your photo albums in a well-ventilated area. Without a circulating air flow, mold and other damaging substances could grow on your photographs.
2. Temperature - Unfortunately, any temperature above 23 degrees can interfere with the chemicals used to process old photographs, leading to discolouration. Therefore, to stop this from happening, we recommend keeping photos in a cool place in the house.
3. Moisture - Alike to temperature; storing your photos in a room with lots of moisture can cause the chemicals in the images to break down. Particularly the dirt; dust and oils in the air can cause permanent damage to photos.
4. Lighting - Finally after being exposed to bright light or just natural light over time; photographs will fade. If you aren’t able to completely enclose your prints, make sure you store them in a dark place.

Over our 65 years of business, we have helped plenty of customers to store their vintage items and belongings including old photographs.

If you’re looking to keep your vintage photos safe, we recommend storing your photos on shelves in your wardrobes; in cabinets or under you bed where they can be climate controlled.

We also suggest keeping your photos off the ground where possible to avoid any damage from flooding.

If you’re not ready to compromise the space in your home for these vintage photos just yet. Then keeping them safely tucked away in a storage unit is a great option - and a space saver!

At Store That Self Storage Canary Wharf, we have a number of storage units in London available for hire.

Ranging from 20sqft to 150sqft, our storage units are made with the customer in mind. Not only is our self-storage designed to accommodate all of our customer’s needs, with a number of self-storage options available including sea container rentals. Our 2-acre site is monitored with CCTV as well as a 24 hour in-house security guard to keep all your belongings safe.

For more information about Store That’s self-storage units, get in touch with our team on 020 7515 1300.