SPOTLIGHT: Camera repairman calling it quits

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Minolta. Kodak. Polaroid. All iconic names once synonymous with taking pictures have been lost or their images faded with the rise of digital cameras and the growing trend toward disposable electronics.

Add Ervin “Erv” Hill and Hill Camera Repair Service in Springfield to that list.

“Time moved on,” said Hill, 71, who announced he will close shop Aug. 31 after 45 years of maintaining area cameras and educating the photographers wielding them.

“It’s time to retire.”

Dean Williams of Dean Williams Photography called the announcement no less than a disaster.

“It’s not just the fact he repaired cameras,” Williams said. “He’d custom build cases to carry all the accessories. He had the knowledge and where-with-all to look at what I had and know how to organize it in a way that when I opened my case, people would go, ‘Now here’s a professional photographer.’

“And what it felt like to walk into his place, his friendliness and professional attitude. It’s just a bygone era.”

‘Wealth of information’

Williams, then a police photographer, wrote a recommendation letter for the bank loan Hill applied for in 1968 to open the shop he and his wife, Dianne, operated at 705 N. Amos Ave.

Before then, area photographers had to send their equipment off to New York or Chicago to be repaired, he said.

Through the decades, Williams has captured still images of countless weddings, hopeful graduates and several Hollywood blockbusters, including “The Blues Brothers,” “Caddyshack” and “Uncle Buck.”

“All of them have been done on cameras Erv Hill worked on,” he said.

Professional photographer Ed Clark has been visiting Erv’s shop since 1979 after being referred there by a friend. Clark, who also teaches photography classes, has in turn referred countless students himself.

“He’s great to bounce ideas off of,” Clark said. “He’s a wealth of information, and if he can’t help you, he’ll keep searching for an answer. He won’t leave you hanging.

“He and Dianne were a joy to work with. You never went in for just a few minutes. They were very chatty.”

Time marches on

Dianne died in 2012, leaving Erv in charge of both the book work and repair jobs.

Hill said some vision problems and a desire to do more fishing influenced his decision to close shop. But industry changes that no longer encourage local repair services had been eating away at his business for years, he said. A growing number of manufacturers no long sell repair parts or manuals. Hill lost a third of his business last year after Nikon adopted these practices.

“They said I was no longer qualified to work on the cameras because they were so advanced, but they wouldn’t sell a manual, either,” he said. “Digital has changed photography.

“People want their pictures right now. And when their camera breaks, they want a new one. They don’t want to get it fixed.”

Hill said these combined influences can be seen in the decline of camera repairs he does annually — roughly a tenth of the business he did in the late 1990s.

The shop, originally a residential space that Hill operated a business from with a waiver, will be converted back into residential space. Hill said he plans to rent the residence, but first he has to clean out what remains of the business.

Hill already has begun notifying customers of his retirement.

“Most say, ‘You’re due for it.’ Others, ‘Where do you recommend I take my camera?’ ” he said. “I don’t know of a place between Chicago and St. Louis.”

Terry Farmer, owner of Terry Farmer Photography, had been a regular at Hill’s shop since returning from college in 1981.

But of late he’d gotten into the habit of sending his cameras back to the manufacturer for repair work. Farmer said that change was due to a service repair contract now offered by the company that has cameras returned in working order within days.

“It’s disappointing,” he said of Hill’s closing, “but not surprising.”

—

Source: The (Springfield) State Journal-Register, http://bit.ly/169ZLWw

—

Information from: The State Journal-Register, http://www.sj-r.com

This is an Illinois Spotlight story shared by The (Springfield) State Journal-Register.

SPOTLIGHT: Camera repairman calling it quits