“Something COLD At The Foot of the Stairs”

by S. C. DIXON

By the autumn of 1975 I was struggling toward the end of my first complete year as owner of The Granada Studio, a small, commercial photography concern located in the north wing of the Fox Granada Theater building in downtown Emporia, Kansas. The little studio had been in continuous operation since a few months before the theater opened in 1929 and had become somewhat of a landmark business in the small city of about 30,000. I would prove to be the third, and final, owner of the Granada Portrait Studio.

The fortunes for the old-fashioned portrait photographer had waned, somewhat. The huge “view” cameras were now virtual dinosaurs during this period of growth for small, faster formats and “location” shoots. Wedding portraits were now made in the church, rarely in the studio, and much of the old equipment had been relegated to the status of quaint artifacts of a bygone era.

It was at this time that I made the acquaintance of a dynamic, semiprofessional photographer named Charles Evans. “Chas” was full of energy and ideas and what he lacked in acumen he more than made up for with enthusiasm. Like myself he loved to work in the darkroom, where the true magic of photography is found, and he would spend many hours there in the gloomy, red safelight, watching images appear, like true alchemy, on blank white sheets of photographic paper.

Immediately we struck up a mutual friendship and within a month had decided to consolidate our resources and become partners in Art and in business.

In order to fairly delegate the labors required, it was agreed that each of us would spend several hours in the darkroom on alternating days. Now, with the addition of his newer
equipment, we were capable of turning out color work as well as black and white film and prints.

Imagine the old concrete dungeon of a basement reborn! The dripping walls and the chemical stained floor, electrical outlets from the earliest days now corroded by condensation, and there, placed amongst my ancient enlarger, beakers, vials and bottles, his two new enlargers, both state-of-the-art, and all illuminated by eerie shades of red and green from Mr. Evans’ newest safelights! (more…)