Photo Stores Closing
It appears there are photo stores closing up shop all over the world. When I moved to Kurume 25 years ago there was a small photo shop near the main train station. It was a well known landmark on the corner of the main street running North and South through the middle of town. I felt rather sad when I drove past yesterday and noticed the sign had been painted over. Evidently it has succumbed to the near complete shift from film based to digital photos, and joined the trend of photo stores closing everywhere.
I bought my first personal camera, a little Canon T70, at that shop, and had countless baby and toddler pictures of my daughter developed there. Now, if I want a camera, I have to go to a mega electronic store and hope I’m lucky enough to find a clerk who knows a Canon from a Nikon. More likely I’ll get someone who has to poke around for a brochure to tell me how long the battery will last.
When I was young, I used to get down these ponderously huge photo albums that were probably a bit bigger than I was, and pour over the photos pasted in them. Those old black and white photos of my grandfather’s first tractor, my great aunt and uncle just before their traffic accident, and all the uncles on top of Mt. Jefferson with their crampons and ice axes had a major role in giving me the sense of belonging and solid foundation that has made me the person I am.
Now with the movement toward digital photos almost complete, and photo stores closing up shop wherever you go, one has to wonder whether people showing each other the backs of their cameras, and sending each other digital files over the internet will really serve to provide the sense of belonging we got from pondering the same pictures in those big photo albums over and over again.
Tags: digital photos, photo albums, photo stores closing
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You know, there is still something magical about sitting down and looking through old photo albums.
I suspect that it's the total experience; the image itself and the aged photographic paper the image is on.
I still enjoy looking at old photo albums…digital photos won't ever take that away!
I love looking through photo albums too, but I tell you I don't miss the peel back pages that became gummy and yellowed over time and the pictures eventually slipped from their moorings…