My Hidden Room

I heard the other day that Ivey Photo is going out of business today, June 30th. What a shame! They’ve always treated me well as a customer; answering my questions, and being helpful. I’ve been a smallish user of film development through them, and a non-user of their other services (quality printing).

But then I heard last week that they were going out of business, as seen in the Seattle-PI.

So today I stopped in and I thanked them for all the great work they’d done for me; for the help that they’d provided me in being an artist, and doing my art. Jesse, whose last day is today, thanked me for what I’d said. He gave me some resources for other local film development.

I got into photography a long while ago, and I only got good at it when I stopped, slowed down, and used film. I think it was because the process had a lot more labor behind it for me — that for everything I did I had to be sure about my choices because I couldn’t simply correct them on the fly and recover there. I had to know that I was composing things well, and had to commit to the choice of firing the shutter.

I’m writing this post to both promote the local analog photography community, and to bring attention to the existance of the community. Here are some local resources for doing film photography around Seattle:

Film Processing

• Moonphoto
  7704 Greenwood Ave. N.
  Seattle, WA 98103
  206-783-3377
  moonphotolab.com
  35mm and 120 B&W, C-41, and E-6 film processing, and scanning, darkroom printing, exhibition grade fiber prints, copying of negatives. Pricing is roughly $8.50/roll for development, less if other services are combined with it.

• Panda Photographic Lab
  533 Warren Ave N.
  Seattle, WA 98109
  206-285-7091
  www.pandalab.com
  C-41, E-6, B&W film development, exhibition grade prints, B&W darkroom prints, digital prints, optical color prints, other services.

• Film Stop
  508 3rd Ave W
  Seattle, WA 98119

Scanning / Digital

• Cosgrove Editions
  Dick Busher
  206-524-6726
  Tango Drum Scans, Inkjet prints on archival rag stock, giclee)

Printing / Mounting

• Wallingford photo center
  1815 n 45th st
  suite 104
  seattle, wa 98103
  206-545-4521

• Dos Rhinos (Giclee printing)
  31004 28th ave S
  Federal Way, WA 98003
  253-941-3094

• Color One (Mounting / Finishing)
  Carl Bebe
  411 2nd ave south
  seattle, wa 98104
  206-622-7107

I’m going to miss Ivey being around. Their services were awesome, and it’s a blow to the community for them to be gone. I hope this list proves useful.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200807/burningman.asp

A friend of mine referred me to this article that is the cover story for the July issue of the Sierra Club’s magazine. The article presents interesting arguments about the balance between the kinds of gigantic, fiery self-expression, about creating community, and changing peoples’ minds through radical expression.

It’s an interesting read, and made me think. It’s an interesting article. Go read it!

Take care,
-Gabriel