美国国家公共电台 NPR How To Preserve Your Polaroid

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Do you still have old Polaroid pictures stashed² away? Are they all washed out and faded? NPR's Neda Ulaby visited a museum exhibition of Polaroid photographs taken some 35 years ago that look as though they had just slid out of a camera yesterday.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE³: I was not the only person at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles marveling at how beautifully these Polaroids had aged⁴, dozens of them by artist David Hockney, showing a bright blue swimming pool and a vivid yellow lawn chair.

GLORIA FELDMAN: My Polaroids don't look like this (laughter). They don't look like this at all.

ULABY: Museum visitor Gloria Feldman says her Polaroids look more like mine - faded, bleached⁵ out, messy.

FELDMAN: You know, throw-them-away kind of condition (laughter).

ULABY: Of course, photography is inherently an unstable⁶ medium. No one knows that better than Sarah Freeman. She's one of the two full-time⁷ photography conservators here at the Getty. Even they were impressed when they pulled these David Hockney Polaroids out of the box.

SARAH FREEMAN: We were a little bit surprised, I have to say. The color is very vibrant⁸.

ULABY: Artist David Hockney rarely displays these Polaroids. That's why they look so great. They're part of his personal collection, and he stores them away from the three major things that destroy them.

FREEMAN: Light, heat and moisture.

ULABY: Freeman has worked on Polaroids taken by Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe and other famous artists. The Getty keeps them in a room more like a refrigerator than the places you and I probably stash¹ our photos.

FREEMAN: Not your attic⁹ or your basement, not your garage.

ULABY: The other worst location for your pictures is your living room, she says. There, the enemy is...

FREEMAN: Direct sunlight. It's challenging because we like to have our family pictures out all the time.

ULABY: Freeman takes me to the Getty's conservation lab. It's a sunlit, gray-walled studio brimming with beakers and microscopes, the most delicate paint brushes and dental tools used for repairing photographs. But Freeman says once a Polaroid has lost its color, there's nothing you can do.

FREEMAN: You can't change fading. Fading is permanent. Once something has shifted, it's changed forever.

ULABY: It's ultraviolet light that breaks down the emulsion in instant film, the same kind of light, Freeman says, that damages our skin. So she says, keep those Polaroids someplace cool, dry and dark. And by the way, wear sunscreen.

Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

1 stash   

v.藏或贮存于一秘密处所；n.隐藏处

参考例句：

• Stash away both what you lost and gained,for life continues on.将得失深藏心底吧，为了那未来的生活。
• That's supposed to be in our private stash.这是我的私人珍藏。

2 stashed   

v.贮藏( stash的过去式和过去分词 )；隐藏；藏匿；藏起

参考例句：

• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她有一大笔钱存在几个不同的银行账户下。
• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她在不同的银行账户上秘密储存了一大笔钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

5 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

• His hair was bleached by the sun . 他的头发被太阳晒得发白。
• The sun has bleached her yellow skirt. 阳光把她的黄裙子晒得褪色了。

6 unstable   

adj.不稳定的，易变的

参考例句：

• This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
• The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。

7 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

8 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

9 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？