{"id":174,"date":"2025-09-21T20:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/?p=174"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:32:30","slug":"becoming-a-habs-haer-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/?p=174","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a HABS\/HAER Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There are many guidelines to follow and regulations to know before transmitting your first Historic American Buildings Survey to the Library of Congress. From how long to wash archival negatives, to what printing paper to use. All the twiddly bits like negative marking pens and where to get the 5&#215;7 envelopes (for the 4&#215;5 negatives) are all explained on my HABS\/HAER\/HALS FAQ page here: <a href=\"https:\/\/habsphotography.wordpress.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>HABS FAQ Link<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"812\" src=\"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-1024x812.jpg\" alt=\"Black and White, Large Format HABS photograph of Chavez County Courthouse in Roswell New Mexico from the Historic American Buildings Survey Collection Number HABS-NM-242-1.\" class=\"wp-image-237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-1024x812.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-300x238.jpg 300w, https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-768x609.jpg 768w, https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-1536x1217.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242-850x674.jpg 850w, https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HABS-Photograph-by-Stephen-Schafer-Roswell-New-Mexico-HABS_NM-242.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub>Black and White, Large Format HABS photograph by Stephen Schafer of Chavez County Courthouse in Roswell, New Mexico (Historic American Buildings Survey Collection Number HABS-NM-242-1)<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">There&#8217;s also a really good (ongoing) discussion on the <em><strong>Large Format Forum<\/strong><\/em> about doing 4&#215;5 photography for a living as a HABS, HAER, or HALS Photographer. Not working for the National Park Service or Heritage Documentation Programs, as an in-house photographer, but rather doing freelance HABS\/HAER photographs of historic places for cultural resource management firms, cities, and government contracts. Follow the discussion here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.largeformatphotography.info\/forum\/showthread.php?147221-Tips-and-advice-for-a-young(ish)-Photographer-on-getting-into-HAL-HAER-HALS\"><strong>https:\/\/www.largeformatphotography.info\/forum\/showthread.php?147221-Tips-and-advice-for-a-young(ish)-Photographer-on-getting-into-HAL-HAER-HALS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><sub>If you\u2019d like more information about HABS\/HAER\/HALS photography take a look at our website.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.HABSphoto.com\"><strong>www.HABSphoto.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><sub>Stephen Schafer<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><sub>Architectural Photography<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><sub>Ventura, California<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><sub>Ph: 415-857-HAER<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many guidelines to follow and regulations to know before transmitting your first Historic American Buildings Survey to the Library of Congress. From how long to wash archival negatives, to what printing paper to use. All the twiddly bits like negative marking pens and where to get the 5&#215;7 envelopes (for the 4&#215;5 negatives)&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,22,23,24,50,67],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-documentation","tag-habs","tag-haer","tag-hals","tag-historic-american-buildings-survey","tag-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habs-haer-hals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}