Another one bites it…
Written on October 15, 2007
Robyn Color, in San Francisco, will be closing their doors at the end of October. As far as I was concerned they provided an invaluable service to photographers with their museum quality on demand Digital C41 prints, for a price which made you feel like you were not being fleeced. If you have 300Ks to invest in buying the business, a profitable and viable one I hear, contact them.
The building was bought out from under them and they will be tearing it down to put up condos facing magnificent highway overpasses. Hopefully someone in SF will have the presence of mind to either buy them out or start a similarly successful business based on the same concept.
This 2 bit town has done it again. I should move to LA when my kids graduate high school, and get out of this second rate city and county. Nice place to work and live if you like coding for a living, but not much good for anything else. Personally, I don’t feel like moving to London, New York or Paris. That leaves LA as a possibility. See you there someday…..
Filed in: Photography, Small Old.
Man, I know you’re working on your reputation as a curmudgeon, and I used to use Robyn Color myself, but the idea that LA might be a substitute for San Francisco won’t fly. I wouldn’t argue about Paris, though.
LA it is a much more dynamic city, much more diverse and open minded. I have live in SF for 15 years and as much as I love it here and use its fantastically diverse surroundings to shoot all of my personal work, it is a second rate city when it comes to having world class amenities. Not to mention the fact that as a working photographer, the kinds of work you get here is rather narrowly defined by its two biggest industries, Bio tech and Silicon valley. Those are some very dull subjects, unless you like cubes and sociopaths like Steve at Apple. Sure SF is great but LA offers much more variety than SF. Bummer is driving in LA is a bit of a nightmare, but if you stay off the Hway and rush hour, it can work out to your advantage.
LA is also very much like SF in that it is a city of neighborhoods, just more of them. At the end of the day, when the services I need as a working photographer are reduced to two mediocre labs and one professional photo supply store, well you get the picture. That’s a good reflection of the industry here, and by that I mean, small, lacking in diversity and choices.
I travel to LA for work fairly regularly and I have to admit, I like it more and more, it is a great city, much more so than this increasingly surly, self righteous and self centered city by the bay, and god forbid I come within 30 feet of any pedestrian crossing the street, without stopping and praising their self righteous world citizenry. For what it’s worth, SF is far to self satisfied to be believed these days.
Well, okay, there might be some truth in all that, but the thing that really strikes me every time I go to LA is how dissatisfied everyone is. Dissatisfied and envious. I don’t see that so much here. And having lived in NYC most of my life, I can really do without it. Also, this is such a beautiful city. You can’t tell me you don’t respond to that.
SF is a beautiful city indeed. As for envy and dissatisfaction I sense that everywhere I go these days. Next time I am in LA, I’ll have to see if I sense it as much as you seem to indicate.
Come to LA! Your agent wants you in her back pocket…