[GH85Carrera]

My buddy that just moved to New Zealand sold virtually everything he owned. All that was left was what would fit an a few suitcases of mostly clothing.

One of the many things he found in his paperwork were some old price lists from the photo labs. He gave them to me. The price list from 1978 has a picture of me, and the old services we offered. Then there are price lists from the 80s and 90s and up into early 2000s. The lists grew a lot as we offered more services.

We had a 5,000 square foot building custom built for a photo lab, 5 processors, a dozen enlargers that could handle 4x5 film and smaller, and two 8x10 enlargers. A huge studio, and as many as 12 employees. All of the light sensitive stuff is pretty much obsolete, and that photo lab and employees can be replaced with my home office, a computer, Photoshop and an internet connection to our print shop that makes the prints for us for cheap.

Of course almost all of that is simply gone as a business. I am so lucky I found aerial photography as a way to stay in the photo world. Professional photography is a really tough business when anyone with a modern cell phone can take really nice photos and be "good enough" for most customers. No one wants to pay for a real pro level photo.