They Be Hatin
Life isn’t easy for us film users. Besides the numerous blog posts about film dying and favourite film stocks being sent to the emulsion graveyard, it’s a tough job to find a lab these days who know what they are doing and don’t treat you like a 80′s throwback. I shoot film for a reason, I’m not naive and realise the march of technology is one many don’t get in the way of, but there are still many aspects about film that digital struggles with, hence for personal projects it will remain my choice.
Being in darkest Africa, where everyone happily pays over the odds for mediocre digital cameras, shooting film is a lifestyle choice these days, support here is patchy at the best of times. My local lab, Fotomax, used to be the best. Hell I’ve heard from all the veterans of this city that Max was the business back in the day. Alas, just like film has declined, so has any hope of getting a professional service from this lab.
I put up with the expensive prices for processing, I put up with the constant bloody fingerprints on my negatives but this week I finally lost the will to continue forgiving them for such a shoddy piece of processing. Charging me R1000 (£87, $137) for processing 17 rolls of 120 film, and then if you’ll excuse the french, fucking them up so badly as to make ones blood boil, was the final straw.
I ended up with 17 rolls of film with numerous fingerprints all over them and remnants of processing chemicals all over the frames. In some cases I’ve lost that frame, it would just take too long to rescue it in Photoshop. Max did promise to run them through the process again, which removed most fingerprints but the damage has been done and I’ve lost about 6 frames in total. I’m not a pray and spray shooter, so 6 frames is a large amount to me to use.
No apologies, no offer of any remuneration, no fucking shame in being so piss poor at business it’s a joke.
I really hope others who might visit Durban and need a lab read this. Avoid Fotomax at all costs. Rather go with Beith Digital in Johannesburg or Orms in Cape Town. Maybe I need to drop Hugo a mail and ask him who he trusts.
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“No apologies, no offer of any renumeration, no fucking shame in being so piss poor at business it’s a joke.”
How many businesses does this *not* apply to today?
Andy,
Totally, it’s few and far between when you do find a business who’s keen to help you and at the same time take your money.
Oy, that SUCKS! I don’t shoot a lot of film but the rolls I have, here in my small town in Canada, have also been virtually ruined. It costs me about $20/roll (Cdn) here for the honour.
can you please email as i am currently writing an article on you for my favourtie photographer for my fashion studies at uni and im extremely interested in your work and would love to here and write about chernobyl.
thank you.
I was only ever semi impressed with FotoMax and after they cut three frames of my negatives in half I never went back.