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photo shop celebrates 50th year in 2000
PITTSFIELD -- Although the equipment has greatly improved, the photography business hasn't changed much in 50 years, said Gordon Swirsky, now retired. He said he had wonderful people for customers and The Photo Shop was a very important part of his life. The store marked its 50th anniversary Aug. 2.
The business is still thriving and "tremendously better than ever," said Swirsky's son, Mark, who has been working full time since his graduation from the University of Hartford, Conn., in 1978 and running the store since his father retired a few years ago. He said he's hoping for another 50 years.
"I've been working there part-time summers since I was 11 -- the labor laws still haven't gotten us, " Mark Swirsky joked.
OPENED STORE AT AGE 17
Gordon Swirsky graduated from Pittsfield High School in June 1950 when he was 17 years old and two months later became the proprietor of The Photo Shop. He bought the business, then on 26 South St., from L. Leroy Phillips and became the youngest merchant in Pittsfield.
"It was the natural thing to do," said Swirsky. "I had had photography as a hobby from the age of 6 and, at the age of 8, I was picking up and developing films for 10 or 12 stores around town."
At the age of 16, he received an award from Mechanix Illustrated magazine for original plans for the construction of a photo enlarger. While still in high school, he had an article on photography printing techniques accepted by Fawcett Publications Inc.
In 1952, Swirsky moved to a new location just off Park Square, 81 East St. In 1956, he opened a second shop at 379 North St. and, five years later, a third shop at Allendale Shopping Center. But Swirsky felt he needed to be in one place where people could reach him all the time, so he closed the two auxiliary stores.
The Photo Shop doubled its space in 1990, when it took over the store next door. It always has been a family business. Gordon Swirsky's mother, Sonia Herberg, helped out in the store. She died two years ago.
"My daughter, Jamie, 9, comes in a writes up film orders and rings the register, as does my son, Josh, 13," said their father. He noted that they are the fourth generation involved in the store.
The store has two other full-time employees and two part-timers.
CHANGES IN INDUSTRY
"The industry really has changed," said Mark Swirsky. "When I first started, the majority of the business was selling cameras and camera equipment; the one-day in-house development in those days was strictly black and white."
He, too, became interested in photography at a young age and was the youngest to have a one-man show of his 29 photographs at age 13 at the Berkshire Museum. Even then, he did his own photo processing. He now is 43.
The Photo Shop has state-of-the-art photo finishing equipment, including a new digital system. The latest piece of equipment allows the shop to fully customize holiday cards, greeting cards and birth announcements. In addition to cameras, lenses and darkroom supplies, the store carries all of the accessories: flashes, tripods, albums, frames.
Swirsky said he feels the weakest link in the industry is photo finishing. "We see customers with fine cameras go to a drugstore film processing laboratory and get very inferior looking pictures," he said. "It is not the equipment or themselves to blame -- in fact it is the processing."
He also specializes in digital photo restoration. "We take either new or old photos that are damaged in any way and repair them without affecting the original," he explained.
In one hour, the Photo Shop can process enlargements of 12x18 inches, 35 millimeter or Advantix -- advanced photo systems, newly developed in the past four years. Only a few laboratories in the county are able to process Advantix, Swirsky said.
CLUB MEMBERSHIPS
In order to compete with drugstore pricing, The Photo Shop for 11 years has offered a club membership at $14.95 a year that provides one of four choices for each roll of film: a free second set of prints; a 20 percent discount, a replacement role of film or a coupon redeemable at any time for 10 reprints or two 5x7 inch reprints or one 8x12 enlargement.
"The value of an 8x12 enlargement is $6.99," said Swirsky. The club has more than 2,100 members.
Because he feels that his work is superior, Swirsky offers at no charge to make six reprints from a roll of film processed by another laboratory if the customer brings in the negatives and prints to be compared with his.
"Our main focus is on photo finishing and we view each negative and put in a correction for each," he said.
While digital cameras are popular and his shop can print and create digital files, Swirsky said film cameras are far superior to digital cameras, but "that, too, is changing, and they eventually will come into play in a larger fashion."
As a service to customers, The Photo Shop has a Web site, www.familyventures.com to show the products the shop offers.
(NEW) HOURS: Mon-Fri 10-3 413-442-6411
81 east st. (opposite the courthouse) pittsfield, ma 01201
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digital imaging
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prints from digital cameras & media
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tripods, flashes & accessories
reprinted from “the berkshire eagle” - august 05, 2000 (by mary-jane tichenor)
Voted “Best of the Berkshires”
Two Years in a Row - 2008 & 2009
