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Rochester’s Last Full-Service Camera Shop

Scott’s Photo by Rowe on East Ave. has been in operation since early 1980s and it’s the last full-service camera shop in Rochester. The good news? It has seen a dramatic resurgence in film photography

By Linda Quinlan

 

Jim Brennan is the store manager of Scott’s Photo by Rowe at 1755 East Ave.

Remember when camera stores were in just about every plaza you passed?

Remember when you could drive up to a little kiosk in a plaza and drop off your film to be processed?

Today, what very well may be the last full retail camera store in Rochester is still going strong.

Jim Brennan, store manager of Scott’s Photo by Rowe at 1755 East Ave. should know. He’s been in the business for 51 years.

Professional photographer Greg Francis stopped into Scott’s recently to have some last-minute prints made.

“It was like stepping into 1996; it’s a time machine,” he said.

It’s a “time machine” that has called its location across from the East Avenue Wegmans in Rochester home since the early 1980s.

While the store has kept up with the times and still does its own developing in-house, it also does restoration work, enlargements, video transfers, poster prints and still sells anything “photography,” from lenses and cameras to frames, albums and more.

“We have a lot of miscellaneous services, too,” Brennan said. Like what he calls “shoebox scanning,” converting a box full of photos or slides to digital so they can be stored on a USB or “flash” drive. They also have machines customers can plug their cell phones into, then pick out what pictures they want to print.

While Scott’s Photo by Rowe has kept up with the times and still does its own developing in-house, it also does restoration work, enlargements, video transfers, poster prints and still sells anything “photography,” from lenses and cameras to frames, albums and more.

“What draws customers in initially is that we’re knowledgeable,” Brennan said.

What’s increasingly drawing customers in is film photography and developing.

“The resurgence of 35mm film is just crazy,” Brennan said. “And it’s mostly coming from the younger generation that was brought up on digital photography. There’s a lot of excitement to see what comes out; it’s not instantaneous.”

Even 15 to 20 years ago, everyone thought film was dead, Brennan acknowledged. Yet on a recent Monday alone, Scott’s took in more than 100 rolls of film to be developed.

“All of a sudden, millennials are saying this — film photography — is really cool,” Brennan said. “They may have found a roll of film or a camera in their grandfather’s attic and started experimenting. Now they like the ‘cool’ look of film.”

Going back that 15 to 20 years, the demographics were that the only people still using film were those age 60 and up who always used it and were set in their ways, Brennan said. Today, he added, Eastman Kodak is still making film and making it in Rochester.

A large sign on East Avenue near Winton Road in Rochester beckons photography fans to Scott’s Photo by Rowe.

The issue today is meeting the demand for film.

“I think the remaining film machines Kodak has are running around the clock,” Brennan said.

Along with the demand for 35mm film, which Scott sells, is a demand for cameras that use film.

Scott does stock new digital cameras and lenses, but film cameras the business has today are mostly used.

“There’s a big demand for point and shoot-type film cameras,” he said, explaining that, in fact, one that might have sold for $179 20 years ago may go for around $500 today.

Film cameras just weren’t being made anymore, Brennan said, but noted that some makers, like Pentax, are now coming out with new film cameras again.

Currently, Scott’s inventory of film cameras “comes and goes,” Brennan said, because they only sell used, good-condition cameras that people may bring in to sell or trade in.

“We have to be particular with the ones we offer, because there are no parts available to fix them today,” Brennan explained.

Professional photographers, like Francis, are still using digital, but Brennan said he has also heard there’s a resurgence of brides requesting film pictures.

Francis, who will be 55 early in the new year, said his work has been all digital for 21 years, but he still looks at film as a safety net. “You have to have the equipment and knowledge,” he said.

Francis estimates that film photography is still less than 3% of the market, but adds, “Of course, that’s coming up from zero.”

Francis and his wife were in Italy and Greece this summer, he said, each with their own pocket-sized point and shoot digital cameras. When they’d ask someone to take their picture together, “Our cameras were relics to most people. They were amazed they had to press a button and look at the back of the camera!” Most people today are used to taking pictures with their cell phones.

The couple still came home with 5,800 photos, which his wife will arrange in volumes and have printed in photo books.

Since they still view a roll of film frame by frame during the developing process and make adjustments to get the best prints possible, “I think I’ve seen every country in the world, though I haven’t been there,
” Brennan said.

 

Over 50 years in the business

Brennan, 67, has seen it all. He started working as a stock boy at Carhart Photo’s Midtown Plaza store when he was 16 and knew the brothers who owned the nationwide company that could trace its history back to the 1800s.

When the brothers started selling off the business, Scott Sims, who was head of retail operations for Carhart at the time, saw the potential for the East Avenue location, which had been open since the early 1980s and purchased it. That’s when it became Scott’s Photo, Brennan said.

When Sims retired in 2011, a competitor, Richard Rowe of Rowe Photo, purchased the store. Rowe also had stores in Greece, Webster and on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, but they were slowly closed. When the Mt. Hope store sold two years ago, that meant Scott’s Photo by Rowe was the only one left in the city. Brennan estimates there were 30 stores like Scott’s in Rochester when he started in the business.

Brennan, who resides in Conesus, clearly knows the photography field.

“I don’t shoot as much as I used to, but I still have a passion for photography,” he admitted. “It’s like any business … you learn the industry and get to know what questions to ask.”

The question on his mind now is where the industry goes from here. “It was a slow ride to the top of the roller coaster (for film again) and we don’t want to see it just drop off again,” Brennan said. He predicts that eventually the film bubble will burst, “but I don’t see it happening any time soon.”

Every film has a different look, but customers, primarily in their 20s and 30 today, seem to like the “retro” look, Brennan observed. He added that a lot of film photographers were very interested in the eclipse earlier this year, noting, “It could have been magnificent.”

With film, the colors are more muted; not quite as crystal clear or sharp as those digital or cell phone photos, he explained. “It’s just like records are coming back; they sound different. With film, it’s just a different way of looking at things,” he said.