A nonuniform photovoltaic field is created in Fe:LiNbO 3 during hologram recording exposures. Experimental results and analysis show the degradation of the volume holograms in the presence of the photovoltaic field. A sodium chloride solution is used to short circuit the crystal to improve the stored images quality. 1000 holograms which can be reconstructed with high fidelity have been stored in a common volume of the crystal which was placed in the sodium chloride solution.