We can hardly believe it, but we’re coming up to something very special….UK Film Lab turns one year old! Woo hoo!
When we set up UK Film Lab, we did so out of frustration with the lab services that were on offer to us as photographers shooting film in the UK. We knew at the time that there were other photographers just like us – busy sending our film to the US – and so very quickly, we set the wheels in motion to create UK Film Lab.
We set up UK Film Lab to provide world-class developing and scanning services to professional photographers throughout Europe and beyond. As we look back on what we have achieved and what we’re delivering to our many clients in the UK, Europe and across the world as far as Malaysia and South Africa, we think it’s fair to say that we have achieved the world-class quality we originally set out to provide, and of that we’re incredibly proud of ourselves and extremely thankful to all of you who have entrusted your precious film into our hands and who refer your friends and colleagues to do the same.
It sounds like a rosy picture and indeed there are many ‘highs’ for us, but it’s been a rollercoaster of a year full of highs as well as lows. If we make running a lab look easy then we’re pleased because we like the work we deliver to speak for itself, but there are many, many facets to running a successful lab, so many unseen aspects of work, and of course none of it made easy by the fact that labs run on technology and equipment that is no longer mainstream. That said, what we have been working on throughout is building a lab with longevity and a lab that meets the needs of the modern film photographer. To those who remark to you as a photographer, ‘oh, you’ve gone BACK to film?!’, we would argue that in fact the direction is forwards, not back. Photographers shooting film nowadays are placing demands on film like never before, and we are committed as a lab to working within the industry both as a lab and as photographers ourselves. Our functions as UK Film Lab are to deliver world-class quality as well as providing education that supports photographers in shooting film – those photographers (and there are an increasing number) who are trying film for the first time, as well as those who are returning to film or indeed those who never crossed over to digital.
So with all this in mind we’re in the mood for celebration! Over the coming week or so as we approach the big ONE YEAR BIRTHDAY for UK Film Lab, we’re going to be making some announcements of what we’ve lined up to celebrate and say thank you. #filmisthewayforward
