Dutch photo collection destroyed in fire

Yesterday, the complete photographic archive of Dutch motor sport photographer, Frits van Eldik, was destroyed in a fire that burnt down his office, located in a business centre in the Dutch city of Huizen near Amsterdam.

Here, the report from his weblog:

http://fritsvaneldik...webpost/?p=1193

The archive contained transparencies from 1983 till 2001 with a lot of material on Formula 1, Dutch national motor sport, DTM and many other categories. Frits had probably the largest collection of photographs of Jos Verstappen from his earliest days in karting via the ranks of Formula Opel and F3 up to Formula 1 and A1 Grand Prix.

A big blow for him and his colleague Daniel, and also for the record of the sport.

Thats bad news.
I can only imagine how gutted Frits must be. A sad loss for all concerned.

Any collector of anything knows a little about how Frits must feel.......
Allow yourself to grieve Frits!

The loss in an accident of any archive material is a terrible thing. The problem of storing the stuff is always a problem, especially in any form of structured format. Storing to use daily or regularly is one thing, but for most of us it is a case of a general library and archive at home.

For those of you who use it as part of earning your livelihood, it takes on added importance. I know it is stating the ..................obvious, but it may be valid to raise the matter again. In many cases it mau be possible to have the items/collection added to the household/business asset insurance, especially if it meant that you were denied the opportunity to earn a living.


This question of safeguarding against possible loss or theft, or keeping a backup copy, or an inventory of a library etc, was covered in this thread.

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=85524

Clearly photographs can be copied, certainly scanned and put on CD/DVD, as a reserve stock, along with copiable "special" documents, and I recommend it to all TNFers.

Usual disclaimers, I am not an insurer.................... but I know how bad it is when something in an archive is damaged or ruined

RL

That's why I should scan my picture collection too.
I wonder how come I have barely no pictures of the Gordini years... sold or lost?
Some of my 1900-1921 pictures are gone.. publisher said he gave them back but nowhere to be found!
High quality scans would allow easier transport and less picture manipulations in the albums.
I didn't get my 1960s Le Mans pictures with me from Belgium as I would have died if the customs wouldn't have allowed that big A3 album in the plane and decided to keep it for themselves.

All the Swaters archives have been scanned

I often wonder how many people with photo archives, have actually researched properly into the life span and protection of their photos.
The amount of research to be done is phenominal. Temperature, natural gasses from paper etc.
Even the current photos of high quality for sale at the moment shouldnt have stickers on the back

This is really dreadful news. Mr. Van Eldik is such a hard working photographer.