It was truly a sad day earlier this week to receive the notification letter from Kodak earlier this week that they will no longer be supplying photographic paper or chemicals. Having been in the professional photography industry for the majority of my professional career, this is hard to believe. When we started with as a dealer with Kodak over 25 years ago, they were the dominant force in the industry with over 125,000 employees.
Our industry has been like a roller coaster since the recession of 2008 with many highs and even more lows. Then COVID came along bringing the lowest of lows and subsequently led to an amazing high in the fall of 2021. Well, the fall of 2022 did not disappoint either. Now that Spring has sprung, it looks like the trend is continuing in a positive direction.
We are still facing some challenges and supply chain issues, but we are finding ways to overcome them so that together we stay successful.
However, we are happy to announce that we have partnered with Fuji. We have been developing a relationship with Fuji over the past 2 years to explore, test and ensure that a transition would be seamless. Seamless is exactly what you should expect. The quality is a little better with higher contrast and they offer Metallic paper. After meeting with their upper leadership team, I know that they will be around for many years to come.
Some of the volume labs in the industry, have already moved to press printing on the Indigo printers. A lot of our internal volume shifted to press prints with the introduction of the SportsPress books in 2007; since then the volume has been split. If you haven't looked at press prints in a while, this might be a great opportunity to revisit this opportunity and leverage the fundraising benefits, and the with your leagues.
