Wide Angle View At Focal Point

Trying to be all things to all men is often an impossible task and over the last few years the industry has seen massive change - with pro labs taking on more consumer work and digital technology enabling retail labs to attract professional clients.

imagecare.com, Kingston-upon-Thames

Many labs are crossing the divide between professional and consumer customers, but more unusually Exeter based Focal Point has successfully moved from the sales and distribution arena into a full spec pro lab.

"Our story is quite an unusual one," said Chaz Halsey, partner at Focal Point.

"It all started 5 years ago with a Fujifilm Pictrography digital printer. While stocking the machines for sale, we found that customers were actually coming in asking to use the demo equipment to produce quality prints of their images. We grasped the opportunity...

"While continuing our sales business, we expanded the range of equipment available for processing and developing - now including a Fujifilm Frontier 350 digital minilab, table top and wide format inkjet printing, scanning services, digital outputting to disk, CD-ROM, zip disks and ISDN transmission. The latest edition which is proving very popular indeed is a Fujifilm FineScan 2750XL scanner with an EPSON 9600 large format printer. Hence the lab side of the business developed.

Focal Point's sales and distribution centre

"Over the years, we've built up a reputation for quality service and can boast a comprehensive range of processing services you would expect from any pro-lab worth its salt. Diversification really is the name of our game and we watch both the market and the needs of our customers closely.

"We've opened a hire studio for clients to use, which allows photographers to shoot, process, and print all under one roof. This facility is proving very popular and we have a series of training sessions on 'studio use' planned.

"We've also recently introduced an extensive programme of general photographic courses covering all aspects of analogue and digital processing and printing - ranging from an introduction to darkroom skills to courses in Photoshop.

"We have a real 'Back to the Future' philosophy, including a mix of digital and analogue technology and services to cater for all of our customers - however they chose to capture their original image.

The new hire studio at Focal Point

Embracing the changes and challenges of the moving time of the way images are produced has been the linchpin of Focal Point's success - we are able to solve all clients' imaging needs - from silver to silicon!"

For more information contact Focal Point on 01392 496066 or at www.focalpointphotographic.co.uk.