Talk about adding insult to injury...

Here is Billing Mt., a local camera shop which has been in business since the early sixties is giving it up. Why? He not only cannot afford to pay the rent on the shop due to low customer flow, there is now NO listing in the Yellow Pages for "Cameras, New and Used".

They don't even have a section for him anymore. When he opened he even had a "darkroom" he would rent to customers so they could develop their own film! Then when we had that tornado back on Father's Day here in Billings, his shop was flooded and now it is growing mold. The owners of the property are required to have the entire building "gutted" and sanitized for local health reasons, and they would have to raise his rent.

No Yellow Pages section, no foot traffic for used cameras, and a rent increase. Guess I'd give it up too. Too bad, his was the last place I could buy film for my Polaroid "One Step", and like it or not those "instant" pictures are better in "legal disputes" than anything digital. They cannot be manipulated. They are what they are.

 

Another sad story of technical "progress" destroying something that had value and charm.

tom

 

Why doesn't he progress into digital forms yet still keep the traditional stuff open?

 

He already sells those, they are just too inexpensive anymore to fill the gap. You don't repair them; you chuck them away like disposable razors. He was astounded to find that the Yellow Pages weren't even going to have a section in "Cameras" for both new and used, which used to be his forte.

He would take good quality cameras in on trade-ups, fix them to new condition and re-sell them. He also used to have a darkroom for personal film development, but he quit that years ago. I think it was the combination of no film camera interest anymore, especially for used/refurbished ones, no place for his ad in the Yellow Pages, and then the need to "gut" his building to stop the mold growth by his property owners. It was just too much when he couldn't place an ad in the Yellow Pages this coming year.

The proverbial "last straw".

 

Dang shame indeed, it doesn't like there would be much of an industry for someone in that position to expand into.

Strange for the Yellow Pages to do that as well, you would think with more and more resources being online and the popularity of such books on the decline that they would still have niche stuff like that in them.

 

Won't be long before there isn't a Yellow Pages at all. The sad march of "progress"

 

Unless the company(s) behind them go bankrupt, they're always be a Yellow Pages, just in electronic form.

 

I'm just curious as to why having pictures that are better for "legal" disputes is a selling point for you

 

I have had recourse to use them when my semi truck was struck by another while parked, my apartment was flooded by the one above me, and my little S-10 was hit in the middle of the night in front of my place by a drunk driver. Only those few times, but it was worth having that evidence at the time. I did see your "grin", and understood it was sort of "tongue in cheek", but there were instances.

 

There's this barber shop I go to and it's really cool..LOTS of history it's been there since the 20's and the barber who owns it is about 40 years old and much of the majority of his client base are retired older folks..he definitely has a nitch going and there's no barber in town like him..there's a great atmosphere there too..it seems shops like those are a dying breed much like any other business that are like this Camera shop you talk about. It's like I LOVE technology and computers and other gadgets but at the same time I like the old-fashioned stuff like this and it's too bad that they're all going away.