Digital divide
Local photo labs surrender to competitive digital revolution
Toolbox
By Bruce Edwards Staff Writer - Published: February 5, 2006
The digital photography revolution has been a boon to consumers who can see their pictures in a blink of an eye and print them at home almost as quickly. But what's been a blessing for shutterbugs has been the bane of traditional film developing shops in Vermont and elsewhere.
The technology has taken its toll on two Rutland photo shops: Vermont Color Photo Lab on North Main Street closed its shop last year and Foto-Hut on Woodstock Avenue is set to close later this month.
For years, the one-hour photo shop was at the cutting edge of photo developing and printing technology. But that gradually changed with the advent of digital cameras and printers. As prices for digital cameras and equipment have come down, consumers chucked their old film cameras for the new technology. And that in turn has meant a sharp decline in business for many traditional photo developing shops.
After 21 years in business, Foto-Hut owner Missy Jasmin said the time was right to close up shop and move on.
"You know we had a good run," Jasmin said. "We were here for 21 years and we're the first ones in town."
With consumers making the transition to digital photography, she said her one-hour developing and photo finishing business could hang on for only so long
With digital cameras, Jasmin said someone can store the images on a computer for viewing, print them at home or e-mail them to friends.
She said the decline started six or seven years ago and has accelerated over the past three years.
"The business isn't there any more," she said. "Film really has gone, way, way down."
Jasmin said her last day of business will be Feb. 15.
Vermont Color Photo Lab closed its Rutland shop several months ago, again the victim of digital photography. According to its Web site, the company operates six photo shops in Vermont, including stores in Springfield, Montpelier, Manchester, Bennington.
"We're holding our own," said Tama Heidtmann, the Springfield store manager, while acknowledging the decline in the film developing and printing business.
At the same time, Heidtmann said there are still a lot of 35mm film cameras in use.
"There are a lot of people who won't go digital," she said.
In addition to the fallout from digital photography, Heidtmann and Jasmin both said their business has been hurt by large retailers like Wal-Mart, Rite Aid and Walgreen's.
"Wal-Mart takes a lot because they can offer the cheaper prices and they have better machines," Heidtmann said.
To compensate for the loss of its film developing and printing business, Vermont Color Photo Lab offers in-store and online digital photo printing services.
That's a move that Lightning Photo in Middlebury decided to make several years ago in order to survive.
"The company that seems to be going out of business did not get on the digital bandwagon early on," said Lightening Photo owner David Werle.
And while digital photo hobbyists can make prints at home, Werle said it's costly and the quality of the prints is not as good as what he and other photo shops offer.
According to Werle, printing at home costs an average of 95 cents per print while a photo lab can do it for half the price or less with better quality.
"Those (home) printers range in price from $99 to the most expensive one I've seen is like $250," said Werle, who has been in the business for 33 years. "The printer we're printing on costs a quarter-of-a- million dollars, so you tell me what's going to give you the best quality."
He added that film developing and printing now accounts for only 10 to 20 percent of his lab production.
Werle said a customer can stop into his shop with their digital camera and plug in the memory card into one of the do-it-yourself kiosks or upload the digital images from their home computer to the store's Web site and pick up their prints.
As its name implies, Bob's Camera and Video has never banked solely on the one-hour photo business in the first place.
"I'm a multi-faceted business," said owner Bob Sager.
In addition to camera sales, service and accessories, Sager also offers a variety of other services including prints from wallet to poster size, and copying video tapes to DVDs.
"We've expanded our service base to make up for some of the film loss," said Sager, who opened the Barre store 20 years ago.
And while home printing has caught on, Sager said because of a combination of cost and quality he's noticed a reversal with consumers returning to have their digital prints done by a photo shop.
Werle said at first he lost business to some of the chain retailers but customers have come back.
"They tried it and hated the quality," he said.
According to Dimitrios Delis of the Photo Marketing Association International, the number of specialty photo stores in the United States declined from 9,300 in 1999 to 5,500 last year. At the same time, he said the number of mass retailers offering photo services and equipment has almost doubled in that same period from 18,000 to 34,000 stores.
Delis said specialty photo shops have been hit with a double whammy of competition from large retailers as well as the fallout from digital photography.
He said photo shops today have to offer digital services and products including printing, digital printers and accessories.
"With one-hour film processing, you can't do business on that any more," said Delis, director of marketing research.
He said equipping a commercial digital photo shop can cost $100,000 and up for a mini-lab for printing and $5,000 to $10,000 for each self-serve kiosk, where customers select, crop and tone digital photos for printing.
Contact Bruce Edwards at bruce.edwards@rutlandherald.com.
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