Phil's title was 'The rise of the home bakery, and the demise of the camera shop' - but it's too long for a blog title here, and it got truncated. Off you go, Phil!
Way back at the beginning of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic I decided that I was going to prepare for any consequences of Brexit on flour supplies by making my own bread. The hunt was on for my first bread machine, after reading lots of online reviews I decided on the model I wanted, ordering it online for click and collect. Then there was the search for any suitable flour, and the search for recipes and advice.
Thankfully I have friends who pointed me towards a local Bavarian bakery – Pretzel and Spelt – the enthusiastic owner produces ‘artisan’ breads, pretzels, and has diversified into supplying flour for the growing band of domestic bakers. Now bakers vary from folk like me, the equivalent of the Canon green square user, to the enthusiasts who spend hours cultivating sourdough starters, hand kneading, proving with obscure cereals. We’ve all met the photo equivalent insisting that real photographers shoot RAW. Remember when your local photographic shop was like that, the owner also the local professional shooting weddings, portraits, industrial and commercial photography as well as selling film, D and P? They were happy to share their knowledge as a member of the local camera club.
I live in Bolton, and recently my local paper ran a story about the threat Coronavirus poses to our last surviving photographic shop. From the 70s it was a part of my life, but recently it was like paying a last visit to a relative fading away. My father got his Zenith B there, then as I developed my interest, they supplied discounted bromide paper and chemicals. They had a thriving Mail Order business. Crucially, you could pick up any Nikon, Pentax, Canon – and they stocked pretty much all of the normal range of lenses. OK, you wouldn’t find Hasselblad, Rollei and Leica there.
On my visit recently the sparse window display was mainly cheap compacts, and a smattering of Panasonic Lumix. It’s a long time since they displayed even the most basic mainstream SLR. 3 staff members who I had known from my 20s were looking bored, with nobody to serve on the approach to Christmas. One customer seemed to be a member of the local camera club, and someone was enquiring about printing, but was referred to Max Spielman who could do what they needed.
So what’s happened to kill off photographic retail? Over the years a lot has changed. Dixons appealed to the amateur, and those dipping a toe in the water with serious cameras; Boots sold a few amateur cameras and film; the Co-Op even had a department that sold film. Over the years we gained and lost a Jessops and a Wilkinsons. In the 80s the biggest threat to photography was the camcorder, the alternative the inevitable Pentax ME Super with 2 or 3 lenses and a flash. Automatic exposure and autofocus helped to keep the cash tills ringing for a while.
However, there are a few tiers of photographic supplier. Manchester was home to a thriving fashion and Mail Order industry, which supported a number of wholesalers supplying film in bulk in pretty much any type and format you wanted, and medium and large format cameras. Of course, the staff knew what their clients wanted, and were usually very knowledgeable. There was constant stream of motorbike couriers collecting rental equipment, bricks of film, chemicals for account holders. When they were not there, the couriers could be found waiting for processed transparencies at local trade lab Colour 061. Only Calumet survives, now known as Wex.
The tier below that? Companies that supplied the professional and amateur at all levels, the likes of Jessops and Tecno. You had sales people understood what the customer needed, and how to sell it to them. Remember the huge Jessops price list, A3, but such tiny print that they sold a branded magnifying card to go with it? Jessops staff were pretty good at guessing what a consumer wanted. I went in to buy two Canon Sureshot film compacts, knowing they would be fine for the grandmothers. The salesman took the trouble to explain how to load the cameras, what they did, how to avoid problems. Then I came to pay with my debit card, and I used the one that had my photographic qualifications after my name (very pretentious!) He was very apologetic for being patronising – there was no need, he was selling at the level required.
By the late 90s things were starting to change in photographic retailing. Jessops had grown to a branch in pretty much every large town. This growth didn’t bring improved customer service: an attempt to corner the amateur market at all levels lacking the expertise to support it. Soon people were starting to ditch the camera for the phone, early results were awful, but the photo industry failed to see the opportunity to make prints from these devices.
By 2000 I wasmoving away from wedding photography (where my needs were supplied by a wholesaler specialising in supplying albums and consumables on an account) to press photography. My local camera shop was back in favour, as their speciality of discounted bricks of film was just what I needed. Things changed, and I became the first photographer supplying the local paper to go digital. At a stroke, my purchase of consumables vanished, as my money went to the middle tier of camera retailing, in my case London Camera Exchange and the ill-fated Jacobs. The staff were knowledgeable, you could pick up stuff, be amazed at how awful AF was on the Canon D30, trade in your old film gear, and try to find wide angles for a crop sensor, (thanks, Richard at Jacobs back then, a fisheye sort of worked). However, it wasn’t just the higher end going digital, the phone was stealing the market for film and processing for everyone.
The cracks were starting to appear in the bigger chains. Staff in Jessops no longer understood the customer. I tried to buy a Minolta light meter only to be told that ‘nobody needs light meters nowadays, they are all in the cameras’ and when enquiring about a 14mm f2.8 to give me a wide angle on crop sensors that ‘it’s silly, far too wide for anyone to use, I can’t see why you need it.’ Early digital was a pain when it came to printing. You could run off inkjet prints, or try and find a way to get the files to a professional lab on floppy disc, CD or Syquest drive. People stopped making prints, and memories stayed on failure-prone hard drives – and there was no cloud backup with a dial-up connection. For a while, prints from any electronic format seemed elusive. As film sales fell off a cliff, nothing filled the gap for the local camera store, and their turnover plummeted.
So, how has the market changed? For the UK, most of the drooling over new equipment happens at either local trade shows or the Photography Show that might possibly happen in 2021, but personally I’m not holding my breath! There’s the Internet - follow the advice of a site like DP Review, see what people on Ephotozine think, look up YouTube reviews (I’m a fan of Christopher Frost for lenses). Then it’s a trawl on the web for the best price, deciding if you want to risk the ’ships from China’ option, and then wondering if that’s the moral option rather than going to see a proper camera shop.
I usually buy secondhand camera bodies from MPB – plenty of stock reliably described and guaranteed. However I’ve returned to my surviving city centre camera shop for lenses, though the web tells me all I need to know about the product, there’s just the handling to see how the mechanics are, and it’s bought. I’m afraid I’m not into the ‘unboxing’ experience, I’ve been known to simply drop a new lens into a pocket wrapped in the receipt. I was persuaded by one of the staff at London Camera Exchange recently to at least let him put it in a plastic bag first.
So why have I returned to bricks and mortar shopping? Well, the staff take the time to get to know you, what you do, ask how you are doing, if you have snapped anything interesting. They highlight new products, flag up stuff that you might fancy buying, and the feedback works both ways, if I buy something, I’ll share my experience of how it works out, so they learn from the customer. You can handle stuff to see if the influencer online was fibbing. Basically, just what the local bakery has done for me – encourage, and consequently, win my loyalty.
As to the local shop that’s been part of my life for over 40 years, I suspect that it’s the end now, with non-essential retail in lockdown. Insufficient medium to high end equipment to supply the enthusiast as their experience grows, no realistic income from film sales, a Mail Order business that relied on consumables and discounted hardware, and staff who no longer understand my needs. I’ll be surprised if it’s not another empty unit on the high street soon.
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