Old friend pushed out by progress

[coolrun]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

Picture this: Old friend pushed out by progress
by Denis Hamill

Monday, December 22nd, 2003

The call on my voice mail was familiar, "Hey, boy bum, it's Jerry. Well, fella, another year has passed and we're another year older but hopefully a little wiser. I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. I'm no longer working; digital finally caught up with me. The job is gone. So call me at home number."

A deep sadness fell through me. Not some maudlin sorrow for Jerry. He'd spit in your eye if he ever thought you pitied him. No, rather, I felt despondent that yet another industry was dying, slamming the door on a small part of my own past.

I met Jerry Lavin when I was 16, when I went to work for him at a place called Color Perfect, a custom color photo lab overlooking Gramercy Park. Jerry was the manager and main processing technician, a whiz at developing flawless professional Ektachrome color sheet film. In the darkroom, Jerry and I would often argue about politics. He'd voted for Nixon, and I was always going to anti-war demos in Union Square during my lunch breaks. He was a history buff, and as fast and sharp as a switchblade. But he respected that I took the time to read the papers and formed an opinion based on facts. He was one of the few conservatives I could call a friend in my hippie days.

Last year, Jerry called from Spectra Photo lab, where he had worked for 20 years. "The photo lab business is dying," he told me then. "I feel like a really good harness maker at the turn of the 20th century. Nothing wrong with my harnesses, but everybody's driving cars. Photography is going digital, boy bum. In 10 years, the labs will mostly be gone."

In the last few years, Spectra had gone from three locations to one, the workforce reduced from 43 to seven. Jerry is 64 and had hoped to stick it out a few more years, mostly because he loves to work. "I used to do 25,000 color dupes a month," he said when I called him. "Because of digital, I was doing less than that in a three-month period. This Christmas will put another 10 million digital cameras under the American tree. Kodak had ceased all new research into silver-based film. I never dreamed it would happen this fast. Nobody needs my harnesses anymore. Another industry is dying. But what the hell, I'm still kicking. So Merry Christmas, boy bum."

[S_Leeper]

Always a bit sad to see an industry die out, but pretty exciting to see one being born.

My first job was typesetting. I mostly broke down the galleys & put the type back in the case after the proofs were pulled.
The computers were just starting back in the early 70's & pretty much did the same with the typesetters... the exciting part was that got me started in computers.

[ianmcc]

I often refer to commercial photography currently inthe state DTP was in 1989,.. we're in the middle of the "Hey anyone can buy one and do this" mode...

I know my lab bills have gone from about $2500-$3000 a month to sometimes about $35!!!

[sandman]

Nothing to do with photography , just progress.
Back in the early 70's when i first started hauling sand there were about 8-9 sand quarries in Kent , since then as they have become exhausted , instead of the county council allowing new working to be started , the've closed down.Turned into country parks, housing estates , and shopping centers.
Now thats great , i've nothing against any of it , scars on the landscape turned into usefull amenities.
But i do sometimes wonder , where in the future we will get the materials to build all our new estates , here in north kent the goverment has scheduled the building of a million new homes , called the north kent corridor , between now and 2015.
Already bricks are in short supply, water, as well we've only one source , everytime we have a spell of hot weather, droughts are forecast.
We're down to 3 sand pits now , and they are on the brink. a lot of sand is dredged from the english channel , but i don't think the qualities anywhere near the same as the old land dug sites .
Just wondering out loud where we will be 20yrs down the line.

Brian

[High ISO!]

This brings up a distant memory.....

In the early 80's I worked as the photographer in an Audio Visual Studio, in Chicago. We did slide presentations and ads for commercials on TV. Lots of big company names came through our doors.

I worked on a camera called a Forox. It was a HUGE motorized copy camera. It would take me hours to get just one multi-layered trans complete! I had to be maticulous in lining up all the different colored layers, or I'd have to start ALL over. I'd be in the darkroom processing E6 until the wee hours of the night, to get the job out on time. It was a difficult (if not frustrating, at times) job, at best. I had fun with the challenges the designers & clients gave me though.

Now.....I can do the same exact thing, even better & more precisley on the computer, in just minutes!

In 1999.....I was hired by a large catalogue company to set up an in house, *State of the Art* Digital Studio.

When I worked at the AV studio so many years ago, digital wasn't even in my vocabulary!

When I had my on hour photo lab, I can remember the Kodak rep showing us this thing called a CD.....back in the mid 80's. He was trying to convince me that this was the future of photography! Ha, I said! Film is the only way to record our lives! Who is going to look at photos on a TV screen!

Alissa

[frankgh]

Just 5 short years ago, I was preparing a briefing on acetate slides for a mission during an IG inspection. When the inspector asked why I was not using Power Point I asked him what would we do if the enemy knocked out our power and the laptops all died. He was impressed. Now there is a new breed of collage boys in charge and all they say is "that'll never happen, do the power point slides". Young collage boys never want to listen to the old sarge. Lets hope the lights stay on.

Speaking of Power Point, anyone remember Harvard Graphics?


Say Alissa, judgeing from your avatar, I can't belive you were out of school in the early 80's! Look much to young!:D

[High ISO!]

Frankgh,
Thanks! I was out of college by the early 80's!!!:D

Alissa

[Marcel F]

You bet , I bought a copy in the mid 80's and rocked the corporate world around me ...

great product at this time ...

Regards

Marcel

[frankgh]

I was using Harvard Graphics v3.0 around 92. I got a hold of this nifty LCD screen that you put on top of you overhead projector to show computer images on the pull down screen in the meeting room. The Colonel I briefed every month thought it was the HEAT!

Hey Alissa, did you finish collage at age 12 or something? (I'm flirting with u! ;) )

[Marcel F]

By 92 , I was on powerpoint .... and yes , with these "Color ?" LCD panel for overhead projectors ..

Marcel
:confused:

[High ISO!]

Hey Alissa, did you finish collage at age 12 or something? (I'm flirting with u! ;) ) [/B][/QUOTE]

Ahhh....Hahahaaaa!
:D

[Linda G]

It is a time of change for photography. I work in the printing industry and we have watched great changes in the last three years, from me, the only person in the digital department, and barely full time, to 6 full timers.

The electric typewriter took over the manual one, computers have taken over both of those and I imagine a keyboard will be a thing of the past in the next decade as voice controls are improved to the point of making them obsolete.

As I heard twenty years ago and have taken to heart:

Change is inevitable, success is optional.

We need to contiually learn new skills because the ones we know now are transient.

[Linda G]

Well, we got news today that the other pro lab in our city is closing it's doors at the end of the year...a scant three days away.

They told their employees about the same time they told their customers. We've had a flood of calls and feel bad for our collegues who are now job hunting. As more and more labs bite the dust, the ones left must change or close their doors, too.

What does it take to be a successful lab? Proofing is almost nonexistent as photographers prefer now to give 'soft' proofs, either on a non printable cd or non archival thumbnail sheet. Studios are moving toward doing some of their own digital printing, and/or, doing their own retouching which takes another way for a lab to make profit. Interesting times are ahead.

Any thoughts of what you expect from your lab?

[Marcel F]

Linda ,
that is a very good question and you may want to start a thread on this topic.
I do not use lab a lot , just to process my E6 (velvia).. but I can certainly define what are my needs ..

The Lab industry is slowly shrinking . That was the hipe of the 80's , now with digital , at each Christmas , they probably see a step decrease when the digital Camera are getting out from the trees...
I did only one roll of film this year ( when waiting from my S2Pro)..

The Lab industry has to redefine what is a satisfied customer .. So far their service was ( in my small town) more drop in film .. Now , they may need to reach outside and provide service such as ICC for printer , calibration , color analysis.
They need also to segment their customer .. the 4x6 business is gone .. that is HP , Epson ... Mid format to large format is their future in print.
Integration ( following the previous thought) . What does it take to make a great picture .. They have to postion themselve in the Picture Process ( From Pressing on the Camera to I have a great picture in my hand).

What I would like from a lab ;
Quality ( implicit)
rapidity ( one hour service )
Extended Service ( calibration of my System ( MAC/EPSON 1270)
Special Paper and specialty inks
Large format printing > A3
Rental of storage (digital)when going on trip
Rental of Epson 4000 printer or other large printer
.......

But is that coming from a LAB ?.. there is no more LAB as such .. ( Darkroom or need for light tight system)


Regards

Marcel

PS : and thanks for asking this question

[Don65Stang]

This post triggered a thought.

Just last week I donated my enlarger and related equipment to Goodwill. My inhouse lab has changed - no need for that equipment anymore and too big to ship on Ebay.

Keyboards gone for voice input? I hadn't thought of that.

[Linda G]

Yeah, Don, but I hear the wheels grinding in your though processes, now! :D

[Don65Stang]

And then there will be a way for the computer of tomorrow to read those thought processes and end the voice commands.

[Marcel F]

Don , you say what " Computer" ? what is that ???

Regards

Marcel

[AndreK]

Speaking of Power Point, anyone remember Harvard Graphics?

Sure do. At the time it was the only program that could print a perfect circle on a dot matrix printer.

Guess what? It's still around. http://www.spco.com/index.asp

[rbeckerelite]

Here in Las Vegas we used to have 3 commercial labs and several semi-commercial labs. Now, we have 1 commercial lab and only 1 or 2 semi's/

In addition to my commercial studio, I teach at the community college and our photography department will be moving into our new building that will have 3 or 4 computer labs and NO chemical darkrooms. We are keeping our existing darkrooms in the old building but in order for us to get the new space, we had to agree that we would not have any chemical darkrooms.

Digital is the new method of doing photography. For the past few years, I have been saying that film and digital will exist side by side. I still believe that but I think it will be a rough ride for the film side for a while. I just checked my records for 2003 and found that I did almost 60% of my business in digital rather than film. I really didn't see that coming!

Ironically, I just got into 8x10 film shooting for my recreational photography!

Best regards,
Randy