Hard Times

I was talking to an old timer on Saturday.  He came in the shop to just poke around and look at all the old stuff we have in the shop.  The SLR case seemed of extreme interest to him so when I finished ringing up a 25 pack of Forte Fiber-based paper and 2 rolls of Fomapan 120, I asked him what it was he liked so much in the case.  I think he spit out something like "everything" and then went on to tell me the next 20 years of my life. 

You see he once owned a camera shop in California and two years ago he had to close it "because of the money it made"  I assume that he meant the money it didn't make.  He described the shrinking margins on the new equipment, the competition from larger stores and the internet and the trend that many folks today don't realize how low quality the images they are capturing really are and even worse, how many of those people don't care. This I know, however I did not know what it was going to be like to be driven out of my store.  I'll tell you about that later.

 I have read a few articles about how sad someone was when their favorite camera shop went out of business.  Don't get alarmed...LeZotCamera is not closing it's doors!  I love this store.  I love our customers (even the biggest pains in the necks).  I love the way dust collects in every corner of every room.  I love on Saturdays when I know I will see the same dozen folks come in to see mostly the same three rooms of stuff they have been looking at for the past 30 years.  I love that people that bother to walk in our doors are really in love with photography.

We have a few internet customers that we can talk to, but I am sure they have no idea what they are missing on the other end.  The smell of fresh brewed Kenya AA mixed with  Pine-Sol.  The site of four guys who do nothing but talk about and think about cameras all day.  Where else can you find twenty different ways to explain aperture depending on your own personal experiences?  

Gotta go explain TTL metering