I received the sad news yesterday that my local film lab appears to have closed down. I last used them about a month ago to process the roll of Portra 800 which I’ve been sharing photos from the past few days and had planned to drop another roll of C41 off in the next week. I took a look at their website the other evening and noticed that it appeared to be offline, just displaying a blank page with no content, but assumed a temporary problem. But then, yesterday, someone else mentioned that there were posts on Twitter about it having been closed when it was visited in person and that the nearby businesses reported no-one has been seen for over a week. Some people on Twitter are concerned because they have posted film to be developed and now have no idea what has happened to their rolls.
I don’t know the precise cause of the closure, but it would appear to have been quite sudden.
I’m sad about this happening. They were a good lab with friendly and helpful staff (to whom I send my thoughts that they are ok). I stopped using them quite as much during and following the pandemic as, when they had to close for a few months as part of the lockdown, I taught myself how to develop black and white film at home, but I still regularly took all my C41 and E6 films there. It looks like I will now have to start using my local camera store for film developing services. While it’s still relatively convenient, being just on the edge of the city centre, it won’t be the same as the short walk I’ve been able to take advantage of these past few years.
I’m not sure if anything will happen to the lab – whether it is closed permanently, or might be rescued in some fashion – but it’s disappointing news for sure.
Today’s picture is from the first roll of film I had developed at the lab back in 2016.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kentmere 400 film.
Taken: 9 August 2016
Steel City Snapper photography 
That is sad indeed, I hope they are okay. I try to support businesses that I want to stay in business, even when it’s something I could do myself. I have to say that I have been developing C41 with CineStill’s simplified process and it’s been great. In fact, simpler than traditional B&W development, and I’ve been using the same batch of chemicals since January. It has lasted much, much longer than the label led me to believe. The instructions confused me at first, but once I read through several times I figured it out, and it was a lot simpler than I thought. It’s just a matter of the clarity of the instructions’ writing, not actual complexity in the product or process.
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Yes, it is sad. Especially for the people who worked there. It was a good sized commercial lab.
I might take the plunge and give C41 a try. I need to find something to manage the temperatures though. Maybe a sous vide or something.
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I’ve had really good results simply heating the Cinestill chemicals to a couple degrees warmer than required. I just microwave about the amount I need, in my case 275-300mL for about 90 seconds; then I stir the heated solution with the thermometer and add unheated solution in until I’m a bit warmer than recommended. The development tank will cool it another couple of degrees
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That indeed is a major bummer. I feel for the folks who have rolls still at the shop. I have confidence that my local shops won’t close any time soon. It’s definitely a reason to get scans uploaded by a shop vs. physical prints or scans on a physical format–if a shop closes and you haven’t picked up your roll(s) but do have the scans, it’s not as big as a loss.
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I always dropped my stuff off in person due to it being within walking distance of home, which was a very useful thing. If I went in in the morning everything would be available to collect in the afternoon – a great service.
The next closed (decent quality) alternative will require me to drive into town (twice) for next day collection. This is still a very handy thing to have, but not as convenient as what I’ve been used to. E6 will be the bigger issue as I’ll now be looking at several days turnround at least.
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Yeah, dropping off in person is so convenient. There are two labs in town where I can do that, one of which can do a day turnaround on C-41. It’d be a chore to have to mail off all my film for development.
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Due to the (unnecessarily) asinine cost of film now and the price gouging of certain film manufacturers, leading to less and less consistent business for labs from a devoted base, I’m sure we’ll only see more and more labs close their doors, even though the community needs way more labs than it has, not less. In turn, the remaining labs, having effective monopolies, will undoubtedly give into (even more) greed and become even more unaffordable than they already are, driving more people to develop themselves at home, or out of the community altogether. The cycle will continue on and on because people keep believing corporate marketing nonsense (i.e. illogical excuses) and defending/supporting this garbage. This cycle will, of course, lead to even more asinine prices across the board for everything film-related (film itself, materials, and all services), until eventually the whole thing collapses. And the disgusting thing is, it was all entirely avoidable. That’s my opinion. Everyone is free to agree or disagree. I really do hope I’m wrong, but so far the predictions I’ve made about the direction of the film industry and community over the past 4-5 years keep unfolding exactly as I expected they would. It’s nothing short of a travesty. Digital photography does nothing for me, so when film is altogether gone or becomes so expensive I can’t even participate on any level (we’re basically there), then, for me, photography itself is dead.
Sorry to hear about your lab.
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Thanks P. I’m not sure what percentage of the lab’s throughput was film, vs digital services for prints and suchlike. I’m sure all labs dealing in film will have seen significant falloff in that part of the trade in the last decade or so, although I also think there might have been a small, but noticeable upswing over the last few years too. I doubt the pandemic will have helped matters, whether for film OR digital custom.
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