Goodbye Film - End Of An Era

I've worked in the photo lab industry for over 20 years. The last 12 at a pro photo lab Qube visual, formerly know as Cies Sexton or Photobition. The other day was the last run of film processing for this business. I wrote this note to the other employees who may not have realized how much the photo industry has changed because of the digital revolution.

Hey, all. Thought I'd share some history of this place we call the Qube.

As most of you know the film department is being shut down today for good. It’s truly the end of an era for this place, and Denver really. Sign of the times though, like the music industry facing changes with digital music, the photo industry must change also. Face it, our life styles are ever changing as certain aspects become more and more convenient with digital cameras and mp3 players, etc.

(If some of my numbers are off here I apologize-Ray and Brent can maybe correct me). This place has been one of the most respected and largest professional photo labs in the country for the last 25 plus years. The film processing and photo services carried this place financially a good deal of that time. When I started working here 12 years ago we had 5 people working 2 shifts in the film department alone. I believe we averaged taking in $100,000 a month at times...just the film department! We had over 100 employees here, about half of which worked only in the photo side of things processing film, making photographic prints or taking in film related orders. The Customer Service department had over 10 folks (?) alone mostly taking care of the 100’s of photographers that used our services. I just checked that plastic slide mounter in the film department and over 58,600,000 35mm slides had been mounted on that machine alone in the last 10 years. Holy crap! That’s a lot of film! That’s not even counting the other formats that have gone through those machines.

So, I bid the end of that era a fond farewell here and look forward to what the future brings us. I’m still proud to be part of this place even though the times, they have a changed...and will continue to do so. Change is good as they say. :)