A selection of expired paper packages from 1910s–1920s, courtesy of Alison Rossiter
The conversations during the FotoFocus Symposium's morning session, Material Economics, consider the materials at the heart of photographic practice-silver, platinum, bitumen, paper, and chemicals-and the economic, social, and environmental histories they carry. For some, this means tracing photography back to the mines and factories where these substances originate. For others, it means looking closely at how those materials age, sustain over time, and are preserved.
To understand how materials shape the life of the photograph, we turned to two Symposium participants who have spent their careers studying and working with photographic matter itself. Lee Ann Daffner, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservator of Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and Alison Rossiter, Photographer, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, approach this question of materiality from differing but complementary perspectives. Daffner's conservation work and research deepens our understanding of photographic objects, while Rossiter creates prints from expired photographic papers, revealing both the vulnerabilities and the histories embedded in the material itself. Together, their perspectives highlight how material choices-and even material decay-shape our understanding of photographic objects, their value, and their place in history.
In the following conversation, they share how conservation and artistic experimentation reveal the intertwined histories of labor, industry, and artistic intent that reside in every photographic object.
FotoFocus: Lee Ann, what is your favorite part of being a photo conservator at MoMA?
Lee Ann Daffner: The collections and my co-workers are hands down the best part of my work at MoMA. These two aspects are so intertwined I could not imagine one without the other. The photography collections across all curatorial departments, the library and archives are incredibly rich and varied. New pockets of materials are constantly being re-discovered and re-considered-it is a dynamic and engaging collection which is mined, cared for, and celebrated by incredible colleagues!
FF: How does conservation aid art historical knowledge? Can you give an example?
LD: That's a great question and entire books have been devoted to this subject! One example being Object:Photo: Modern Photographs, the Thomas Walther Collection 1909-1949. Conservation and conservation science are uniquely qualified to contribute new scholarship to material cultural history. Material analysis and historical accounts can be combined in research efforts to increase our understanding of artifacts and their value as unique objects (including photographs).
FF: Is it unusual for conservators to curate, write and edit?
LD: No, it is not unusual. In addition to writing for our professional journals and publications, at MoMA, conservators are invited to contribute essays to exhibition catalogues and online publications on a regular basis. Subjects range from short technical notes and glossaries to fully realized essays focused on artist practice. My recent texts for MoMA include essays on Edward Steichen's Moonrise over Mamaroneck; Pablo Picasso's photographic practice in 1921 while summering in Fontainebleau; and Gustav Klutsis's studies for a 1931 poster, The Reality of our Program is Real People-That is you and Me.
Curating is a different thing altogether and less frequent. I am currently co-curating a collection gallery with Curator of Photography, Oluremi Onabanjo, focusing on the Photo Secessionists. Another example that comes to mind is Henri Matisse: The Cut Outs from 2014 co-curated by Senior Paper Conservator Karl Buchberg and Senior Curator of Drawings and Prints, Jodi Hauptman.
FF: Alison, do you have conservation training?
Alison Rossiter: I have no credentials in photograph conservation. I am not a photograph conservator. I studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Banff Centre, School of Fine Arts in the 1970s.
Curiosity about photograph conservation in 2003 led me to a volunteer position in the Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper, Photograph, and Time-Based Media Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the supervision of Nora Kennedy, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge. Two years later, I began working as a conservation assistant at The Better Image, a private photograph conservation studio in New Jersey and New York co-founded by Peter Mustardo and Nora Kennedy. From these experiences I gained a profound respect for the photograph conservators who broadened my understanding of photography far beyond my education as a photographer.
FF: How did you get interested in obsolete photographic materials?
AR: In the Photograph Conservation studio at the Metropolitan Museum of Art I saw a sheet of unused photographic paper from the 1910s. I had no idea that such materials still existed. I was fascinated, but I didn't pursue the thought.
By chance an eBay seller included an old box of expired photographic paper as a bonus when I purchased a large lot of expired sheet film in 2007. The first sheet I processed of this Eastman Kodak Kodabromide E3, expired May 1946, looked like a graphite drawing by Vija Celmins, perfectly rendered from corner to corner. The age of the material altered the performance of the light sensitive emulsion. Deterioration produced unintended abstract imagery. It occurred to me that any package of expired photographic paper might behave similarly, and I began to collect papers in earnest. Had this box of light sensitive paper behaved normally as a viable printing material, I never would have started my work with expired photographic papers.
FF: How does the imagery in your work relate to the materials, and is that important?
AR: I process old photographic papers to see what years of storage have done to them. The materials are the source of my imagery. I consider my photographic prints to be physical records of time. Light sensitive papers react to temperature, humidity, mold, and physical damage even while sealed in light tight wrapping. Subtle latent image disturbances appear as distinct marks and tones when developed in chemistry. Fingerprints and light leaks render more dramatic traces. The labels on the paper packages provide information about the commercial production of the material. Often an expiration date is printed or stamped on the package or box. My print titles identify the manufacturer and brand name of the paper, the expiration date when available, and the date I processed the paper. These facts indicate the expanse of time each print represents. My earliest papers were manufactured in the late 1890s, and one hundred and thirty-five years later these photographic emulsions still react to chemical developer. The tonal palette is limited. but the results are informative. I think of the expiration dates of papers as points on a timeline, and I want to know what happened in the world simultaneously.
FF (to both): How does the idea of Photo-Economics apply to your work or how does it impact how you approach your work?
LD: The study of Photo Economics became a central consideration in exploring modernist photography in MoMA's Thomas Walther Project, which led to the Object:Photo suite of online and print publications. Our goal then and now is to understand why a given artist may have chosen a particular paper, camera, or negative format. After all of an artist's efforts, expense and choices, often only the print remains as the tangible evidence of the process that began when he or she picked up the camera. By considering photography within the intersecting contexts of social and economic history, photography's technical development, and what is known of the artist's intent, we can define a richer, more accurate map of an object's lifespan.
AR: My collection of unused expired photographic papers is a chronology of commercial production in the photographic industry from the late 19th through the 20th centuries in the United States and Europe. An amateur market appeared with the introduction of handheld cameras, and I have examples of the early photographic papers those new photographers bought to make their own prints at home. I read biographies of inventors and businessmen for my own curiosity to know more about the history of photography and the beginning of the photographic industry. The packaging of photographic products is a design history to be explored as well. Buying photographic papers introduced me to early photographic paper markers whose businesses either thrived or disappeared. I have evidence of their existence.
I continue to use a darkroom with chemicals to produce prints, and my methods have changed for my own personal protection. When I began my studies in photography in 1970 it was standard procedure to dump used darkroom chemicals down the drain. Today I have a silver recovery unit to extract silver from my fixer. I wear a respirator to minimize my exposure to chemical fumes, and I use surgical gloves to protect my skin from the chemical baths. I limit my working hours in the darkroom and settle for slow progress.
Join us for the 2025 FotoFocus Symposium: Photo-Economics
From conservation labs to expired darkroom papers, Lee Ann Daffner and Alison Rossiter show us how much there is still to learn from photography’s materials. Their work invites us to rethink not only what photographs depict, but what they are made of—and why that matters. Join us at the FotoFocus Symposium on October 4, 2025, to hear more from Daffner and Rossiter as well as additional conversations related to Photo-Economics and the ways images shape, and are shaped by, the world’s economies.
