We started cleaning the garage this weekend past. Made a lot of headway. We tackled boxes which we haven’t touched since we moved in, almost 19 years ago. Time flies when you have other things to do.
This morning I continued. There were a few boxes of assorted odds and ends that I needed to cull through. In doing so, I found this photograph.
Donna has only seen me without a beard once. She didn’t like the effect, mainly because int he years during which I’d had a beard I somehow misplaced my chin. Anyway. This was back when I was a trim young fella on the make, as it were.
The historical context of this photograph is rich. Firstly, it is the young me. That’s about as interesting as that gets. Secondly, the setting. Shaw Camera Shop. 4468 Shaw Avenue, St. Louis. It had been in business since the late Forties and it was, hands down, my favorite job. I was the lab tech and later lab manager. I worked there for 20 years, made fast friends (many of whom are gone) and played out some of the great dramas of my life partly within its confines. It was a black & white custom lab and at its peak we were doing the printing for several color labs, most of the independent camera stores in St. Louis (of which almost none remain) and three of the local yearbook companies. Lots of pictures. This shot shows me behind the front counter, the film cabinet behind me.
Thirdly, the print itself is of modest historical interest. It was shot on Kodak Instant Print film. There was a time when Polaroid held the monopoly on that kind of technology. You wanted to take pictures without bothering to send the film to a lab, you used Polaroid. Kodak muscled in while Polaroid suspended production during a strike. They—Polaroid—subcontracted the manufacturing to Kodak till the strike ended. During that time, Kodak got a chance to really take Polaroid’s process apart and a year or so after Polaroid resumed production, Kodak announced a new product—instant print film. They claimed it was all their own. Polaroid sued. And won. So this print is an example of a short-lived phenomenon. (It wasn’t very good—I’ve put some effort into making this one easier to look at and sharper, but there’s only so much you can do.)
Shaw Camera Shop is long gone. The owners for whom I worked, who I loved like a second family, had problems—Earline had battled cancer for decades and finally lost and Gene just didn’t want to continue anymore. I was just beginning my writing career and knew if I bought the business I’d have to give that up. So Gene sold it to someone who was ill-suited to running it and he ruined it.
Today, the building houses an antique store, Gringo Jones. Last year was the first time I’d set foot in the place since a few weeks after it closed up as a lab. The new owners pretty much gutted the interior to suit their needs, but I could still walk unerringly through to where everything had been. I doubt I’ll do that again, though.
Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise to find this. I have other pictures of Shaw and myself from that time. I didn’t, of course, realize just how much I liked that job until it was gone. But the memories are still there.