It’s called a family owned neighborhood store or mom and pop shop.
I grew up shopping in local neighborhood stores in New York. There were no massive chain stores. There were stores within walking distance or a bus ride that would be located up and down streets and these stores were SPECIALTY STORES. There were local food markets, clothing stores, candy stores, toy stores and yes, yes-there was a camera store. The name was DAVE’S PHOTOGRAPHY STORE.
Dave carried all of the popular brands of cameras, had lots of accessories hanging on the wall and shelves dedicated to darkroom processing. There were trays and tanks and chemistry and paper.
The store had a distinctive smell but not until I began to work in my dad’s darkroom did I learn what the smell was. It was a chemical called FIX and fix was a final step in the processing black and white images. The reason the store smelled from FIX was because Dave had a black and white darkroom behind a heavy black curtain in the back of the store. He did customers black and white processing and printing; in a custom sort of way. I say custom because everything was done by hand.
Once a week my dad would take me to Dave’s and there he would look over new stuff and would break out in a sweat over the anticipation of my mom letting him buy something new. Money was pretty tight back then. But even in the years when money was a bit less tight, mom still made the final decision.
Today most of those stores are gone and those that remain struggle against massive mail order houses, photography CHAIN stores and the internet keyboard.
But not all good things come to an end. In our area we have a mom and pop store called Photocraft and they like days of old stock the best cameras and accessories you can buy, have a color lab in the back of the store and provide impeccable service to all of their customers.
It is a shopping experience worth investigating because when you do you will look forward more and more to your next visit for the next great thing that your partner will agree you need. I can see the anticipation rolling of your brow now.
Only buy OEM products that the manufacturer recommends for their products.
Bottom line give them a try. They are at:
6025 Burke Centre Pkwy. Suite C Burke, VA 22015
(703) 250-5555 – - Ask for Eldar.
