Author: Webmaster

Albert C. Weber

FfPP’s founder Al Weber died February 27, 2016 just two months shy of his 86^th birthday. To say he will be missed is a serious understatement, not just by his friends and colleagues at FfPP, but by the many photographers he mentored over a long career as a teacher and commercial photographer.

He always rejected the term “artist” being applied to him, but he would not object if he was referred to as a master craftsman of both black and white and color photography. Regardless of whether he was photographing children, the lines of architecture or the abstract contours of the earth as seen from an airplane, Al brought a consummate level of craftsmanship to all of his projects.

Ray McSavaney’s Archive

by Janet Schipper

When Ray McSavaney passed away in July 2014, he left a considerable photographic legacy. He had been one of the founders of the Owens Valley Photographic Workshops and was a highly respected teacher. He had self published “Explorations”, which represents a fine selection of his images and reveals his talents as a writer. His photographs had been exhibited and collected by individuals and institutions, including the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Estate Planning for Photographers

by Reverdy Johnson

If you desire your archives to have a permanent home and not end up in someone’s attic, you need to do some prior planning. Specifically, you need to investigate who may be interested in acquiring your archives, or portions of them. Unless the acquirer is an institution that wants the “whole photographer” for teaching or research purposes, you may find that it makes sense to place different elements of your archives with different recipients.…

Notes from an Archivist: Finding a Home for Your Body of Work

by April Halberstadt

As an archivist/curator, my job is two-fold. First, I have to make a recommendation to my Board about making room in my archive for donations and second, I have to find the time and money to organize the collection for storage and display.

I recently had the experience of placing the archive of my late father-in-law, M. H. Halberstadt in the archive of Special Collections at the University of California-Davis. It was an interesting exercise since I was on the other side of the exchange in this situation and I was trying to make our donation as attractive as possible. So I would like to share a few insights from my experiences as both an archivist and a donor.

How FFPP Works

by Virginia Bly Johnson

After more than a year of meetings and informal discussions with Al Weber and a few other photographers who shared his concern for what might happen to the archives of an aging population of career photographers, the Foundation for Photographic Preservation (FfPP) was organized as a California non-profit corporation in August 2006. We subsequently qualified for tax-deductible status under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3). The specific purpose of the corporation is to facilitate the preservation of the works of photographers, or of photographic collections, that have artistic, historical or social merit.

Reflections from the Trenches

by Reverdy Johnson

Here are some of the lessons learned in the course of working with photographers and their estates for the placement of their archives over the past eight years.

John Scarlata—A Case Study

by Ben Garfinkle

In July of 2007, John Scarlata was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was told he had anywhere from 6 months to 10 years to live. At the time of diagnosis, he was 57 years old. Now what?

John taught photography for 30 years. He also amassed a personal body of work with camera formats from the ubiquitous 35mm up to 7” x 17” view cameras.…

Morrie Camhi Archives

by Virginia Bly Johnson

Morrie Camhi, a successful Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area commercial photographer, was also a prolific writer and documentary photographer. ESPEJO: Reflections of the Mexican American, perhaps his best known project, was a deep survey of the Mexican-American people and culture which Morrie organized, directed and worked on with six other photographers. The project evolved out of Morrie’s earlier work documenting the demonstrations and strike actions of the United Farm Worker movement in California, and culminated in exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Oakland Museum.