It's kind of funny to see all of the outdated things going on at once in this picture. First, you have the "phone cards" plaque on the aisle marker (which I suppose refers to the type used with pre-paid cell phones these days, though even though I have one of those, I buy minutes online these days since it's getting hard to find the physical cards in stores these days; the wording, however, makes me think of the long-distance calling cards my parents always used to use when I was growing up, which even they eventually switched off of in the late 2010s as it was getting very difficult to find them and cheaper to just use cell phone minutes). Then there's the electronics section almost to the checkouts, which always seems to carry old-fashioned things in stores like this (which can be helpful for people like my family who are always on the outdated end of the spectrum when it comes to technology). And then there's the main subject of this photo, which is the photo services department, which at this point is smaller than the sign that refers to it! It's always kind of sad (though unsurprising, of course) to see how Rite Aid has reduced a department that once had pride of place in their stores to just a single machine crammed in with the ATM and Western Union machine -- and a rather sad machine at that, which looks to date back to the days of film when photo printing was a big deal for places like Rite Aid. I really have to wonder whether part of the trouble Rite Aid and similar stores are in these days could be related to the loss of the whole film-related part of their business...
Wow, I'm surprised to hear that anyone was still using landline long distance phone cards as late as the late 2010s even especially for domestic calls. It's not terribly unusual to see international long distance phone cards at ethnic grocery stores here in Houston, but I suspect even the use of those is pretty rare as Skype and WhatsApp has mostly replaced long distance for those calling countries where it's very expensive to call on a landline or cell phone. Of course, pre-paid cell phone cards are still pretty popular and I've seen some stores like Kroger and Target carry a pretty large selection of TracFone and other pre-paid service cards even in recent times.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should not be surprised that long distance cards still exist. I think I heard that 10-10-321 and 10-10-220 still exist. Of course, probably nobody born after 1990 or so would even know what I'm talking about, lol.
Drug stores seem to be the place to buy outdated electronics. Back in the prime days of audio cassettes, drug stores were one of the major places to buy blank audio cassettes for some reason. Electronics and music stores had a wide variety of cassettes, but after that, it seemed like drug stores were the next biggest places for them. It's still possible to buy new Maxell audio cassettes at Walgreens and CVS, but I've heard conflicting reports about those Maxell cassettes. I'm not 100% sure about this, but it seems that they've been discontinued in the last couple of years and the stores still selling them are just selling old stock. I know that Je of the Louisiana & Texas Retail blog purchased a Walkman-style cassette player from a Louisiana Rite Aid a few years ago since we discussed it on his blog. I seem to remember that he wasn't too pleased with the quality of it.
Does Rite Aid still offer send-away film processing? I took a quick look at their website, but I couldn't see anything about it. It does look in your photo like maybe they still sell Fujifilm disposable cameras, but maybe they won't actually develop that film themselves?
Walgreens still has send-away film processing, but it's a whopping $14.99 for 24 exposures of 35mm and they don't even return the film negatives. They do include a photo CD though which might prove more useful for most people (though as Je and I recently discussed on his blog, many computers don't even have CD drives these days), but those who like to scan negatives for maximum quality may be disappointed especially if the photo CD files are relatively low resolution. In the 1990s, I seem to remember getting double prints of send-away film developing for under $7 so the prices have really gone up on that.
I have a number of old film developing envelopes from retailers dating back to the early 1970s and maybe even the 1960s. The oldest ones aren't mine, but are from family members. Perhaps I ought to scan those and put them online. Kmart used to have cartoon kids called the "Goof Proof Kids" which advertised their photo quality guarantee. I have several envelopes like that since Kmart seemed to be the main, but certainly not only, place where my family took their photos. This isn't my photo, but here's an image of that on Flick: https://flic.kr/p/7ftXS9
Yeah, we're pretty old-fashioned people in my family! 😉 Neither I nor my parents had a cell phone until 2015, and I know they kept using phone cards until a few years after then when they started getting really expensive and hard to find. I also didn't get a smart phone until earlier this year (and it's a 2015 model), and my parents still have a flip phone. (We have moved to FaceTime for quite a bit of long-distance calling, though.) And even though we're outdated, I think those 10-10 numbers are a bit before my time!
DeleteI'm honestly not sure if Rite Aid does any sort of film processing any more. My neighbor in Port Angeles used a film camera until just a year or two ago, but she always took the film to Walgreens (and loved getting the photo CDs back, I'll note!). My parents still had a film camera until the mid-2000s (later than most, but not exceptionally so I suppose), and we always took our film to Walmart (and now that I think about it, not having film is probably one of the reasons that we stopped going to Walmart regularly around that time).
You should definitely post those! I'm always interested in seeing graphic design from that era. My parents still have a bunch of film envelopes around, but they're mostly from the early 2000s so not that interesting.
When you said that you didn't have a smartphone until this year, I started wondering to myself if maybe you were taking your retail photos with a regular digital camera. I then remembered that your Flickr uploads said you use an iPod Touch so I suppose that makes sense.
DeleteI know there are some retail photographers, Random Retail is the first who comes to mind, who use regular digital cameras for retail photos, but I think that would be very difficult to do without potentially getting kicked out of the store. Other shoppers and store employees would surely be suspicious if they saw a camera. At least with a phone/iPod Touch, one can pretend to be texting or something when they are taking photos inside a store. Although I've taken some retail photos with smartphones over the years (none of them are published online, but maybe they will be one day), I'm pretty nervous about taking photos even that way.
I stopped using film regularly for photos in around 2004. If your parents stopped at the same time, I would say they stopped using film at around the same time that the majority of Americans did. I had a digital camera prior to 2004, but the quality wasn't great. By 2003-4, it was quite possible to get a digital camera which took good quality photos for a reasonable price (<$300). Of course, flash memory cards were still expensive back then. I may have paid something like $50 for a 512mb SD card back then, but the economics of that were still superior than buying film and having it developed. One of the issues with cheaper digital cameras back then is that they were really slow and it wasn't uncommon to have to wait at least a full minute after taking a photo before you could take another one.
The last roll of film I had developed was in 2008, but in that case I knew I needed to get the photos printed so I just used film. That's interesting that your friend still took photos on film until recently and liked the photo CDs. I suppose there is still demand for such services, but I don't know if Rite Aid provides photo developing. I know that Fujifilm Instax film cameras which provide a photo print right after the photo is taken, which are like the Polaroid instant cameras we had back in the day, have gained some popularity in recent times.
I'll have to work on scanning or taking photos of those old photo envelopes. I think some people will find those to be interesting. It could be a while before I finish that, but I'll let you know when I get those posted.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable with a normal camera! With a phone/iPod and especially with headphones in, I wonder how many people even realize I'm taking pictures. I know some do, but I imagine it doesn't register in the same way is if it was a typical digital camera -- especially a higher-end one which is largely what you can get these days.
DeleteI don't remember exactly when my parents got a digital camera, but it was a while after pretty much everyone we knew (and I don't think the people we knew were particularly early adopters, but who knows), and right around when it was starting to get difficult to get film developed. Maybe that would have been late 2000s then. I remember the days of expensive memory cards and trying to stretch how long they would last; these days, on the other hand, even relatively small memory cards that you can buy are so big that the camera doesn't know how much storage it has! I don't remember that sort of time delay, but I know one of the big constraints was that the camera eats batteries (which was probably the biggest expense).
I often feel like Port Angeles is full of people who really can't stand change, and my neighbor is no exception. Plus she's in her 70s, so not super into technology (I know that's a bit of a generalization, and my grandparents had a smart phone before I had a cell phone at all, but it's true for her). Sometimes people need a bit of encouragement to change -- she only got a digital camera because her film camera died, just like how I only got a smartphone because my flip phone died.
I don't recall ever seeing dated electronics @ my local Shoppers Drug Mart. They do still have 2 photo kiosks like the one pictured.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada sell dated electronics. It might just be a Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid thing here in the US. I did visit a Shoppers Drug Mart during my trip to Ontario in 2011 and I was quite impressed by it, but I didn't check out their electronics. 2011 would have been before the long arm of Loblaw got their hands on Shoppers Drug Mart, but I did briefly visit another Shoppers Drug Mart in Ontario (I believe in the Ottawa indoor mall near the ByWard Market, the Rideau Centre) in 2017 after Loblaw took over. Again, I didn't look at the electronics so I'm not sure.
DeleteLondon Drugs in western Canada is a really neat pharmacy chain. They are a combination pharmacy and electronics store. They probably have some vintage style electronics, but also cutting edge electronics as well. I'm not sure if NW Retail ever crosses the border, but if so, it might be worth taking a look at a London Drugs. I'm sure there are some in BC.
I remember liking Shoppers as a kid when we used to go to Canada more often (before it got so expensive to take the ferry from Port Angeles), but it's been a very long time since I've been there. I don't think I've ever been to London Drugs, but I can't say for sure.
DeleteI was planning on taking a vacation to Vancouver this summer, but, well, that didn't happen since Canada doesn't want Americans in their country right now (especially BC since they're handling COVID way better than pretty much anywhere else around here). Maybe next summer, if the world stops falling apart by then...