Imagine you are on vacation in a nice place with many visually engaging attributes that are worthy of pointing a camera at. You are strolling downtown with your significant other and she wants to go shop for a few hours. You decide that shopping is not for you, set a meeting time and place and look for a coffee shop to have a seat and read the paper. You contact who seems to be a local and ask where the best place is for that, not Starbucks perhaps. The enthusiastic informant quips, "Oh, just go to the DarkRoom, two blocks that way on your left"....
You show up and there it is, a hip and cool coffee shop with photo-esque motif, safelights for light fixtures, all kinds of cool photo nostaligia as decor, bean-bag chairs, photo-centric coffee table books abound...you get the idea. And next to the counter where the barista is chugging away at making you a latte with "2-Stops" of espresso, is another counter....cameras for rental and purchase. In the case are not dusty old Practicas and 120 folders, but shiny, colorful and whimsical renovations of what were garage sale paperweights. There is a stable of Blads, some with really funny stickers covering them, others with bright red and blue leatherette, all in perfect working condition having been gone over by David Odess. Then there are Leicas, Nikons, Canons and several others.....all mechanically sound and freshly adapted to be the new age of film photography, the fun part. Some of these beautifully restored cameras ar for sale too, not eBay level dirt cheap, but surely affordabe by most. You notice lots of black and white and color film behind the counter in a cool fridge that has been painted and stenciled in well known quotes by famous photographers...you are fully engaged now....
You have two hours to kill, you ask the person at the counter "So I can rent one of these, but where can I get the film developed?" The Barista replies, "The color we send out, but the black and white can be done right here in our darkroom, you can even do it your self and print it too." The gentleman rents a Leica, had always wanted to try one.
The next day, he asks his wife if he can have two hours to go print his film...he is hooked and buys the camera of his dreams.
This business is my five year plan, to not only bring back film based workshops to one of the most art and talent filled places on Earth, but to provide a place where you can sip a cup of "Grade-3" while you look at a well worn copy of "Bare Witness" by Gordon Parks or rent a leopard skinned Nikon F2 and develop the film your self. Many of those used cameras out there are like old Beach Cruisers, they can be not only restored, but made cool, hip and fun.
This is what film photography needs in order to survive, to shake the cobwebs off of it and freshen it up, to be cool again and just plain fun.
This too, can be a reality...