Little entry about how difficult it is to support local business when they stop offering services I use!
I just found a roll of Fuji Pro 400H in the drawer where I keep all my cameras and films. While trying to remember what could be on it, I realised that, for once, I actually had the money to go and get it developed.
There is only one shop in my local area that still processes film and the first time I went in I was pleased to see that didn’t just mean 35mm but also 120 film. So I took along my finished rolls of film- 3 black and white and 2 colour, only to find that, “We don’t process black and white any more, I’m afraid”.
“Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just have to use a mail order service for my black and white films in the future but at least I can get my colour films developed here.”
The past few months have been pretty busy for me with work so I haven’t had much of a chance to take photographs, therefore I haven’t been back to that local shop for about 3 months.
GET TO THE POINT
So today I went back to get the film I found developed and noticed they’d moved everything round inside the shop and had installed, wait for it….a coffee shop. Although it’s still a Kodak shop now you can go in and have coffee and cake.
As if there aren’t already enough coffee shops around here…
So I wandered up to the counter and with some slight hesitation pulled out my roll of 120 film, the girl behind the counter looked at me as though I had pulled out a severed head from my pocket.
“erm….we don’t do film any more”, she explained, still slightly confused.
“oh…right..ok”, I said.
So this appallingly-written story brings me to the question, that I know every user on this website will know the answer to: Is film photography a “dying art”?
Of course, I know that it’s not. Clearly recent sales of Holgas, Dianas, LC-As, etc. prove that, but how do we make that clear to our local photography shops? Mail order processing is expensive, time-consuming and for impatient people like myself, the wait of almost a week is just too long. But this is what it has come to, perhaps it’s time for me to move to a more interesting place that caters more to my hobbies…anyone got any cheap apartments in NYC?
6 comments
rav_bunneh
I'm having the same problem here on the island of Oahu here in Hawaii. The one place I know that does 120 is only open M-F 10-4pm, which means I can never go there. Which leaves me with going to Longs Drugstore and just shooting 35mm. Slides? Cross processing? Not a chance. :'(
norm
davidpowell
I emailed the store to find out if he was getting rid of any of his development kit so there's a possibility i could have a go myself, just worried about messing up films! @rav_bunneh lucky that you live in Hawaii i guess! maybe try calling the store and asking if you can drop the films through the postbox so they can process them for you during the day then mail them back to you? it's a long shot but it'll be worth it if they can!
devoncaulfield
Blogging Superstar.
I think the photo development shop that's outside Moorfields Station does 120 film? I remember asking the lovely wench that works there about it once anyway.
@norm is spot on with the DIY idea - if you're doing a lot of rolls of B&W 120 you would save yourself a bomb with a cheap start up kit!
Lots of Love.
Cheers, thanks, bye x
davidpowell
I'd definitely love to give home developing a try. Sent an email to moorfields to get a few prices, at the moment it's costing me £10 to develop a B+W film and about £2 just to send it off! that's the cheapest mail order one that i've found, bloody England. It seems in the US it's usually about $5-$8 the lucky buggers.
devoncaulfield
I twet this by the way.