CONTACT PHOTO LAB FAST FACTS
THE LAST OF A BREED Photography
LOCATION Los Angeles, CA
FOUNDED 2012
SPECIALTY Community dark room for photography
EMPLOYEES 7
Contact Photo Lab is a fine art photography collaborative workspace and one of the last independent community darkroom facilities for traditional photographers in Los Angeles, California. It is also one of the many small companies that took a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. From the beginning, the owners, Christopher McElrath and Michael Gotz, saw Contact Photo Lab as a service for the community, from professional photographers to students. The photo lab specializes in developing black and white film, as well as using large-scale digital printers to convert small images. For more advanced professionals, the company helps photographers present their work in museums and galleries throughout Los Angeles and globally. The pandemic forced many businesses, classified as non-essential to close, including Contact Photo Lab—making its chances of surviving financially unclear.
“We were totally shut down, and we couldn't
allow customers to come to us during the pandemic,” Gotz said. “We were faced with financial difficulties, not having any revenue for at least two and a half months.” However, receiving funding from the Paycheck Protection Program through CB&T helped put the business back on track. Since 2013, CB&T and Contact Photo Lab have worked together to help make sure their financials are crystal clear. “In my experience, CB&T is a community bank with bankers and tellers that know me by name,” Gotz said. “When I walk in the door, they seem genuinely glad to see me. When I go to the larger institution where I still do have some personal checking and banking accounts, they don't know me. I'm not going to say they're callous or anything, but they're professional and institutional. I just don't get the same welcoming feeling that I get with CB&T.”
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IN YOUR CORNER ISSUE 5 | 2020
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