Tucson Professional film development shop ceases

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goamules

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Another film developing shop bites the dust. Tucson, AZ. I had my E6 developed there until this year, when they stopped that. I had my large format color developed there, and some other 35mm. All development now cancelled, not enough work. But they are going to keep selling frames, tiles, canvas, bracelets. I swear, there will be no easy way to shoot film unless you are a home hobbyist soon. Or like mailing undeveloped 8x10 sheets of $10 film to another state.

http://www.photographicworks.com/
 
goamules said:
Another film developing shop bites the dust. Tucson, AZ. I had my E6 developed there until this year, when they stopped that. I had my large format color developed there, and some other 35mm. All development now cancelled, not enough work. But they are going to keep selling frames, tiles, canvas, bracelets. I swear, there will be no easy way to shoot film unless you are a home hobbyist soon. Or like mailing undeveloped 8x10 sheets of $10 film to another state.

http://www.photographicworks.com/
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Let's be realistic here. It's because it is Tucson.

There are plenty of really successful shops out there. But you need to have the demographics to support it.
 
Our almost 40 year old sales and processing lab in Tempe, Arizona, ceased E6 within the last two years.
I did a lot of business with them over the years, but with the E6 elimination, I decided that I no longer have any use for them whatsoever.
 
Thanks for the link. I'll look for somewhere to ship to.

Tucson is the 2nd largest city in our state, Phoenix being the 4th largest city in AMERICA! We're only 2 hours from Phoenix. But I'm not driving 4 hours round trip to visit a development store there, if there are any left. My point is there are big states and small states and about 20 huge cities in America. How many good film processing operations are available? It's a big step down from the drive up, 1 hour photo processing of my youth, to have to find a mailer, go to the PO, wait....wait...wait....and get it all back.
 
Now Toronto is fourth largest city in America and no slide film developing within the city, but shipped to Montreal.

Oh, Fred Herzog used to send Kodachrome from Vancouver, BC to California for developing. And then I purchased sold in Toronto Minox it has mailing envelops for developing in NYC.
So, it is back to normal...
 
goamules said:
I swear, there will be no easy way to shoot film unless you are a home hobbyist soon. Or like mailing undeveloped 8x10 sheets of $10 film to another state.
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Pretty much true, I think. Developing services are as close as your post office. Not a bad thing if you're patient and find a lab you like.

Time to ride with the wind, not against it.
 
MCTuomey said:
Pretty much true, I think. Developing services are as close as your post office. Not a bad thing if you're patient and find a lab you like.

Time to ride with the wind, not against it.
Click to expand...

Color transparency film doesn't travel well. It's best kept cool and processed quickly. Fed-x can be quick (and expensive) but they, or any other normal shipping service, won't keep the film cool. I've seen the results of color film getting too warm when on extended travel - not good.

I've done E4 and E6 and once C41 processing in my darkroom. Roll film isn't bad but, having processed all my b+w sheet film, I wouldn't want to do any color in trays. Color sheet film tank processing may be okay but, I think the results might be inconsistent from batch to batch?
 
PKR said:
I've done E4 and E6 and once C41 processing in my darkroom. Roll film isn't bad but, having processed all my b+w sheet film, I wouldn't want to do any color in trays. Color sheet film tank processing may be okay but, I think the results might be inconsistent from batch to batch?
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I do dip 'n' dunk processing in tanks that hold 2.5L of solution, 6 sheets of 4x5 E6 or C41 at a time. Works great. I used to use Tetenal 2 or 3 bath kits, purchased in 5L batches, but they discontinued them and only have 2.5L kits - at almost the same price. So I've been trying out different manufacturers and have had fine results from Arista kits.

Plenty of people have told me that these press-type kits give poor color. The proof is in the pudding - my color is just fine. Looks just like the lab developed stuff, as long as I don't do anything stupid of course. Longevity on these images may be less, I don't know. Haven't seen any issues in my negatives from 6 years ago when I first started trying home color developing. If the negatives fade after a few decades...so be it. For me it's either do it this way or don't shoot color.
 
As a Tucsonite I am very sad at this.
On a slightly related note, the much-vaunted Dwayne's is now into destroying your negatives unless you specify otherwise. This from their website:

If you have selected the Process Only - No Prints and Upload option you can omit the shipping and handling charge if you do not want your negatives returned. Be aware your negatives WILL BE DESTROYED when your order is completed and your files are ready for download.
 
goamules said:
Tucson is the 2nd largest city in our state, Phoenix being the 4th largest city in AMERICA! We're only 2 hours from Phoenix. But I'm not driving 4 hours round trip to visit a development store there, if there are any left. My point is there are big states and small states and about 20 huge cities in America. How many good film processing operations are available? It's a big step down from the drive up, 1 hour photo processing of my youth, to have to find a mailer, go to the PO, wait....wait...wait....and get it all back.
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You're missing the point. It's Tucson. It doesn't matter how big it is if no-one there cares about film. If they did, you'd have film developing places.

Huntington Beach, CA, has a film lab. Long Beach has several. Both these places are smaller than Tucson. Tiny Santa Barbara, CA has at least one. They are there because there is a market for them, people there care about film.
 
AZPhotog said:
Our almost 40 year old sales and processing lab in Tempe, Arizona, ceased E6 within the last two years.
I did a lot of business with them over the years, but with the E6 elimination, I decided that I no longer have any use for them whatsoever.
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Huh!! Tempe Camera's website implies that they are still in the film developing business:

https://www.tempecamera.biz/Film_Processing_s/622.htm
 
I was in Photographic Works just last week (to buy color transparency film) and saw no posted signs about their shutting down. Just shows you how quickly things change in photography.
 
I only shoot B&W, but honestly, anyone who is at all serious about this should be developing their own film anyway. Same w/ printing it. Darkroom work is really easy once you get it all set up, and if you do your own developing, you can customize your workflow 100 times better than another lab could ever do. The cost is almost nothing too. No, I would much rather my money go into buying film than paying someone else to do what I can do much better anyway. I cannot imagine that shooting colour would be that much more difficult to learn, even given the requirements to work in darkness, keep your temps exact, etc. It ain't exactly rocket science, it just SEEMS that way at first. If I can learn to do it, anyone can.

This is something everyone really needs to learn because if I know what film I am going to shoot, with what developer (and how I want to develop it with that developer), and with what subject and lighting, that will tell me a lot about how I want to print it. Knowing that, I can better understand what type of paper to print it on, whether or not it would be better to tone it, go w/ a lith print, and so many other things. The more you understand the process, the better your photos will be. And I don't even have a dedicated darkroom! Been printing up to 16x20 w/ fiber paper in a tiny bathroom and a bedroom for years. Used to block out all the windows, stuff towels around door frames, all that. Now I just wait till it gets dark. I may be older and slower, but after a while you learn a little something :]

Tucson may be a largish city (although it never felt like more than an extravagantly sprawled out small town when we lived there), but we are talking about an imaging process that is well over 100 years old, and has largely (and poorly) been replaced by digital. New York is a really big place, but you won't find many people painting frescoes or printing lithographs there anymore either.
 
The problem with C-41/E-6 is getting the chemicals shipped, you certainly have more options available in the US than...

I've only been to Tucson once for a few days, really nice City, I liked it a lot and it seemed 'big enough for film' to me.

Sorry for the bad news, hopefully someone else sees an opportunity, or the original store has a change of heart.

Try and stop them selling their equipment for now(!) or buy it if they do(!!)
 
goamules said:
Thanks for the link. I'll look for somewhere to ship to.
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In former times - which lots of older photographers describe as "the golden times of film" - it was just normal to send your films like Kodachrome via mail to the specialised labs.
No one complained about it.

Now we are living in an "internet and online" economy: We order lots (some people even most) of our needed goods online, and get it shipped by mail.
Very fast, convenient and cheap.
We can do the same with our film and processing needs.
It is even easier and cheaper compared to former times.There are lots of different excellent labs offering perfect quality and excellent shipping service.
You just have to put your films in the next mail box. Finished.
No need to drive to the lab, searching for a parking place, paying for gas and parking fees, wasting lots of time.

I have three local labs in my city. Nevertheless I often use mail ordering because it is so fast, convenient and cheap. Much less time consuming for me and cheaper compared to take a ride through the city to one of the local labs.

And there is always the excellent alternative to develop and print at home:
Colour processing (C41 and E6) is very easy and cheap at home. Especially with a JOBO film processsor. It has indeed never been so easy and cheap as today.

Cheers, Jan
 
PKR said:
Color transparency film doesn't travel well. It's best kept cool and processed quickly.
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I have to disagree.
I've sent out C41 and E6 films for processing via mail order for more than 30 years, and have never had any problems. Neither with C41, nor with E6.
The current Fujichrome films are extremely stable and have an excellent latent image behaviour. They are also very tolerant concerning temperature:
I've shot Fujichrome films which were about 2,5 years over their guarantee date, and stored only at room temperature: They were completely fine and delivered perfect quality.

The world famous desert photographer M. Martin has used for decades only colour reversal films (Fuji). In an interview he was asked how much of his thousands of films over all the years have been damaged by heat:
He replied: "Not a single one. I've never lost one picture because of higher temperature."

Cheers, Jan
 
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