By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

Most of the historical photos you see in this and the previous section of this year's Salina Edition were originally recorded on film and printed on silver emulsion paper.

They were reproduced for the pages you've been reading using either a digital camera or a scanner to copy the original print, and computer software to sharpen and restore the image.

Digital photography overtook film in about 2003 to 2004, revolutionizing image-making by making it far cheaper and easier to take pictures.

"That's when you hit high quality with 4-plus megapixel cameras," said William Coolidge, formerly sales manager at Fast Focus photography shop in the Galaxy Center, 2320 Planet. "That totally changed the market. You didn't have to spend $10 to $12 on a roll of film."

Today, as families record their photos digitally (many times along with sound and video clips), it's going to provide a robust treasure trove of the times for historians in the future, but also headaches for today's historians struggling with the best way to catalog the digital avalanche and make it retrievable.

Judy Lilly, Kansas history librarian at the Salina Public Library, said "We rely on donations from people, family pictures and things, and that will probably stop because they won't have (prints) either," Lilly said.

"The future, we haven't exactly made plans for that, I don't think, as we should," she said.

Internet camera sales

Coolidge quit his job at Fast Focus three months ago after 16 years because he decided the photo retail business was bottoming. He now manages a Goodland truck stop for Salina-based Triplett.

Photo Marketing Association International, a trade group, estimates there were 8,800 independent camera stores in the country in 2000. Half of those have since closed, it reports.

Equipment sales through the Internet have cut into those stores' sales, and profit margins have shrunk as equipment has dropped in price and camera models are being refreshed so rapidly, say those in the industry.

Fast Focus changes

Jerry Feuerborn and his wife, Elle, started Fast Focus in 1989. A year later, A Smile A Minute Photo, downtown at 117-119 S. Santa Fe, closed after more than half a century in business.

Film sales at Fast Focus have dropped off 80 percent in the last four to five years, Jerry Feuerborn estimated.

"We're having a hard time getting some of the film to sell. Digital has just taken over, is what it amounts to," said Feuerborn, who turns 70 in March.

Kodak, on its Web site, still offers technical information on its family of films but few if any opportunities to purchase film directly from the company.

At one time, Fast Focus processed film and made prints for customers of about 60 area grocers and general merchandisers.

"That's dropped to about 10 now. We went from doing about 250 rolls of film a day to about 30 rolls a day today," Feuerborn said.

Fast Focus has recentered its business on servicing its customers' photo portrait and digital scanning and printing needs. In the store is a mini photo studio, primarily used to take children's and senior high school portraits. The couple's daughter and son-in-law also have a photo studio, Forever Images, at 500 Kenwood Park Drive.

"We used to print from negatives, now we print from image files," Feuerborn said. Fast Focus can also take boxes of old pictures and digitize them with a high resolution scan, onto a CD or DVD for long-term storage. A good grade of DVD, which holds as many as 500 pictures, experts estimate, will last 50 to 75 years.

Fast Focus has filled scanning orders for old pictures ranging from $25 to more than $2,000, depending on the amount of photos involved. The latter was a gentleman whose mother had died, who brought to the store "two wash tubs full" of pictures, Feuerborn said.

Changes at the Journal

When former Salina Journal photo editor Fritz Mendell started his 36-year career in 1961, news photos were taken with a 4x5 (inch) large format negative or a 2Ôªø1âÑ4 medium format negative camera; 35mm cameras started coming into vogue before 1970.

When Mendell retired in 1997, 35mm film negatives were being scanned and edited digitally. Digital did a lot for the environment, he said, because no longer did chemicals used to develop pictures have to be disposed of.

"The only pangs I had was about (making prints with) the bigger format, that seemed like an art that was lost," Mendell said. "But another art replaced it -- Photoshop (software) and digital editing. It seems today as though there's as much artistry in the computer end of it, in fact, too much."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

Join the Discussion:

Salina.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here. Read our full online terms of service policy.

Post a comment
Your best chance of getting your comment posted:

• No profanity
• Be civil
• Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

Comment:

Poster:

Enter text seen above:

Read our full use policy.