Well crap -- one of Seattle's major photo labs closes its doors

I have been doing photography for longer than I would care to admit. (cough 45-years cough) When I moved out to Seattle, there was one place to use for custom photo work and that was Ivey-Seawright later called Ivey Photo. Later, Prolab opened up and they were just as good, specializing in large printing whereas Ivey was the place to go for developing your rolls of film, including any special instructions for pushing or pulling on the various baths. Well, hard on the heels of the Prolab auction (here and here) comes this news of Ivey's closure. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Ivey Photo shutters film lab
Store a victim of shift to digital photography; workers' futures uncertain

Ivey Photo, among the few Seattle photo labs still processing professional-grade film, will close its doors Monday, the latest victim of the massive shift to digital photography.

The store's site, www.iveyphoto.com, on Wednesday consisted of a single page, stating, "As of June 30th @ 5pm Ivey Photo will be closing its doors. Thank you for your many years of patronage."

Some assets of the business, at 424 Eighth Ave. N., have been bought for $60,000 by BIGink LLC of Seattle, a producer of banners and tradeshow graphics, said that company's president, John Scholl.

BIGink bought Ivey Photo's high-capacity, large-scale printing and photofinishing equipment, some scanners, a van and some other equipment, Scholl said. It also received Ivey Photo's customer list and will pay Ivey Photo for any printing business the list brings to BIGink.

But BIGink took a pass on Ivey Photo's photo processing equipment -- the so-called wet side of the business, which includes developing film.

"We weren't interested in the photo business. It's dying," Scholl said.

Parent company Ivey Imaging, based in Portland, will keep a sales office in Seattle and stay open.

So the big swinging dicks that run da 'bidness' have decided that wet work is dying. Beneath them. Bubba, the future is digital... From the same article:

"We're not terribly sure why (Ivey Photo is being closed), because the film side is unique, and we are definitely the only ones doing what we do in Seattle," the employee said. "We had people from all over the country sending us film."

She said the business was still profitable -- "very much so," she added.

Prolab was profitable and running quite a bit of business but the owner wanted to close and did not want to sell to anyone else. Now Ivey has willfully self-imploded. Fortunately, there is still Panda Lab