Q&A - General
Everything you always wanted to know about Berkhamsted Imaging*
* but were afraid to ask.
Because, we sell nice things.
And, we’re friendly, ethical and honest.
And, we try not to take ourselves too seriously.
And, we go out of our way to make you look good.
And we know, you shouldn’t really start sentences with “and”, “but” or “because”, no matter how tempting it is. But, we do anyway. Because, we’re also quite keen on self-referential jokes.
Look, if you’re not going to take this seriously, it’s only your time that you’re wasting.
Our favourite colour is, officially, monkey butt red, we’re only a short walk from the Post Office and we’re weirdly keen on helping you get the best out of your images.
No. Not even close.
We’re a genuinely independent, local shop. We don’t answer to corporate policy makers, franchise specifications or shareholders. No-one tells us what services we can offer, what prices we should charge or what shade of purple appeals most to the underachieving target demographic of 29-32 year old Albanian Chimney Sweeps.
We only answer to our customers and ourselves.
We only choose the equipment, we think is the best available. We only sell stuff, we like. We only promote and recommend what we think is good.
Most people, think truly independent shops like ours, are worth supporting[1].
Q. Ah, that means you’re one of them dingy, old camera shops that has been around for donkey’s ages which specialise in dust, Hasselblad adapters and casual sexism, right?
Well, we’ve been in Berkhamsted for almost 30 years, but we’re not precious about tradition. Quite the contrary, we like to think of ourselves as pretty forward thinking.
But, we’ll let you be the judge of that.
Lots.
Essentially, we have:
- a mini-lab (a big, beast of a machine that turns negatives or digital images into real photos)
- a pro-level, wide format printer and
- 4 state of the art, self service kiosks on site.
This means that we have complete control over the production of your images.
No.
Cheap photo printers, if you’ll excuse the obvious pun, are two a penny. Most of them are online and many of them are here today, gone tomorrow. Some will even try to entice you with introductory offers of “free” prints.
However, we know that you’re savvy enough not to be fooled by such things. We know, you understand that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that every business that competes solely on price has to do absolutely everything to keep its costs down.
For instance, you could entrust your images to a photo lab that:
- prints on flimsy, low quality paper (which in the industry venacular is called, euphemistically, “standard” grade), or
- uses uber-hi speed machinery that prints so fast, the photo doesn’t fully fix (you won’t necessarily notice this when you get your prints back… but you will in 10 or 20 years time when your, now, treasured and irreplacable photo is a sludgey, faded shadow of the picture you took); or
- compresses your images before printing them; or
- uses a process that has no human involvement or scope for manual intervention whatsoever. or
- exports your images overseas for printing in a country where labour is cheaper and more readily exploited (Mmmm... photos with thousands of needlessly added air miles, for that nice, warm and fuzzy, “I’m killing the planet, but at least I saved 2p on each print” feeling).
You could do this, but we wouldn’t recommend it.
There are some things in life, like open heart surgery and ice-cream, that you just shouldn’t buy on price alone.
Photo prints are memories in waiting. Moments captured that cannot be recaptured. What is that worth to you?
No, far from it.
We’re brilliant… and modest… and we won’t cost you the earth. (Can you see what we did there?)
Yes, it’s dead easy.
Just print a lot of images, at the same time.