About The Author
"Of course, I was excited about the idea!"
In about 1984 my father was looking for a business to start. He came across an add for 1 hr film processing. Of course, I was excited about the idea! Since I was going to work at the family business too, I received training from the manufacture of the equipment. While this first equipment was not the most advanced, it did give me one big advantage over more automated equipment. I learned color theory better than many people in the industry. The nearly manual operation of the equipment also helped me learn what a good exposure looks like and what can be done with it. I estimate I personally printed and individually checked (and reprinted) in the millions of photos. I could tell what brand (sometimes even speed) a strip of negatives were from across a room. I have seen everything that can go wrong in a photograph thousands of times over.
"I found that they just aren’t told a few things that would make their photos turn out so much better"
The sad thing is, for the most part, the photos I saw were not very good. While the photos people take are very important to them (try telling someone a machine broke down and ruined their photos of Disney and you will find out how important they are), I found that they just aren’t told a few things that would make their pictures turn out so much better. It could be spending just a few more dollars on a better camera or choosing the right film speed.
In short, the years I spent in film processing were an education in photography that I could not have gotten any other way. It was a classroom of real world experience (expanded past my experience to that of the customer’s experience also).
Soon after opening the lab a new idea was introduced in the 1 hr. film industry. The idea of adding a 1 hr. portrait studio to a 1hr lab. Our first studio was only a bit larger than 8×10 feet in size. We did not promote it very heavily at first while we learned more about creating portraits.
In 1986 I graduated from high school and went Florida for a semester of mechanical engineering. I spent that semester thinking that I should be a photographer. My grades were not very good either (math, the foundation of mechanical engineering, was not my strong point).
I did not return to Florida the next year. While I did take classes locally (including Calculus) I never got a degree. I also took photography classes for a bit of a challenge but got to the point where about all I had left were classes of film processing and I did not see the point of taking those.
The spring of 1987 is the year I feel I truly became a photographer. That was the time we first began to try and get portraits. While my father did some of the portraits, I did most of them. I studied the work and business of Charles Lewis, a Michigan photographer who has helped many portrait photographers run successful businesses. We did not think we could do his business model and continued with our improved version of a one hour portrait studio.
"I would spend 7-9 hours a day just doing portraits in the studio."
We did not, however, follow the 1 hr. portrait studio concept very closely. A desire to produce better than average photography meant it usually would take longer than 1 hour to do a portrait properly, especially the high school seniors that we had begun to do a very large number of. At times of the year I would not do as much of the printing as I would spend 7-9 hours a day just doing portraits in the studio.
"By the late 1990′s, photography in general began to change."
By the late 1990′s, photography in general began to change. Many drug stores and discount stores began to offer 1 hr film processing. They did and still do it at cost (remember the $18.00 I spent on my first roll?). The supplies for film processing have gone up in cost. While many of our customers truly appreciated the better quality we could usually offer, we began to experience a drop in the volume of film we would get to process.
"there was now less film to start with"
Then came digital. Slow at first. Then it came much more widespread. Not only was there more competition, there was now less film to start with. We began to see less and less film.
Fortunately, we had a very good portrait business going. The studio was really what was keeping our doors open. We were doing the work of a traditional studio and charging 1 hr portrait prices for it. It was a shock to me when I realized our prices were so low, that when we had to send out for any printing to be done, we were charged more for the printing than we charged for the portrait. This is actually very common among portrait photographers. I was beginning to burn out. My father had died in 1999 so there was no one else to do portraits. I was not getting paid very well. I was tired of photography.
"One by one we began to see almost all the other independent labs and camera stores in the area close"
Photography itself was not looking like it would be a good business for anyone. One by one we began to see almost all the other independent labs and camera stores in the area close for good. Other photographers I knew (both commercial and portrait) were wondering how long they would be able to stay in business. I went back to school and got a degree in computer networking.
God works in mysterious ways.
I went to school full time (sometimes doing over 18 credits a semester) and worked at the family business full time. I have to thank my mother for her support. The year I got my computer degree was the year of the big dot com bust, when so many of internet businesses seem to fail. Suddenly (right when I graduated) there were a lot of extra IT people with lots of experience looking jobs. Also, after graduating, I still did not want to leave mom alone with a failing business. I did meet this very beautiful girl at school while I was working on that degree. Now she is my wife. God works in mysterious ways.