Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Canlas
Hi Jonathan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
theFINDlab started as an extension of the FILM IS NOT DEAD workshop I started in 2008 and ended in 2015. This workshop went all over the globe with the last four being in Berlin, Perth, Madrid and Monterrey Mexico. At the time, labs were closing their doors and I wanted to create a lab where you could not only send your film in, but receive feedback so you could continue to better yourself as a photographer. We opened in 2011 and at first it was private for attendees of the workshop only but it ballooned to over 700 people worldwide so we decided to open to the public in 2014. Our current location in Orem is in an industrial park making it not really foot traffic friendly. 95% of our work is mailed in from all over the world. We are probably one of the top 5 largest labs globally but not a lot of folks know who we are locally. In the film world, when you say FILM IS NOT DEAD, or FIND, they know exactly who we are. Most businesses establish themselves locally and then try to expand but we had already established ourselves globally and now are trying to establish ourselves locally. We are opening an Analog Community Center in Provo, UT. Production will stay in Orem, but in Provo we are opening a public darkroom, gallery space, studio, and showroom/retail space. Our grand opening will be June 26th 2024.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I signed a lease on the new space in Sept 2022 thinking we’d secure city permits and finish construction within 6 months. The permits didn’t come through until Dec 2023. And by that time our original bid from 2022 went from $250k to north of $800k for a building I do not own. So we had to make a decision. Either cut our losses or pivot. Originally, we were going to move the whole lab down to Provo. But production will stay in Orem and we decided to open things that would make sense in the heavy foot traffic location of 187 W Center Street and to bring creativity to the masses. To have access to a darkroom, gallery space or studio you’d either have to be a photography major or pay a hefty rental fee. We wanted to remove the barrier to entry. The darkroom will be rentable at $25/hour ($15 for current students), the studio will start at $45/hour ($35 for current students), and we have over 700 sq ft dedicated to just gallery space where we can feature local, national, and international artists. With the reach of FILM IS NOT DEAD within the industry we will be able to bring in some of the biggest names in the industry. We already hosted a workshop with Rashod Taylor and Lisa Emuluh, both Arnold Newman recepients (advancement in portraiture award), and Lisa found out she was awarded the Guggenheim while she was teaching the workshop we were hosting. We started a Kickstarter to help offset the 18 months of lease we have paid without having any revenue come in as construction is still underway. We were able to successfully raise over $56k through various pledges for a limited edition film we released with a UK-based company called Candido, preselling darkroom and studio rental time, offering family sessions by myself in the studio, and limited edition prints of the mural we replaced on the west side of our building. It was pretty nerve-wracking as 4 days before the campaign was to end, we were hovering just over $25k by the end of the day, then by morning it jumped to $35k, then by that evening to $45k. Then the following morning with 26 hours left to go, we reached $50k, and finished just north of $56k the next day. A lot of stress would have been avoided had we known so many people would come through at the last hour!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about theFINDlab?
I received a BFA in photography from BYU back in 2004. I cut my teeth shooting weddings as it is what kind of naturally happens to someone who’s a photographer living in Provo. By the time I graduated I was already shooting 35 weddings a year. What made me different had a lot to do with the medium I stuck with, film. I’ve never shot digitally, even to this day. I started doing workshops in 2008 for other photographers called FILM IS NOT DEAD in the height of what was the digital onslaught of DSLRs. The workshop went all over the world to Berlin, Madrid, Ibiza, New Zealand, all over Australia (Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Hunter Valley, Melbourne), London, Surrey, Brighton in the UK. There were over 700 photographers who attended the workshop in person. I started theFINDlab in 2011 as an extension of this workshop. And because of it, we have clients all over the world. We are embarking on a new project where we are opening an Analog Community Center in Provo, UT. It will be equipped with a full retail space (we currently, mostly sell everything online), a public darkroom, a daylight studio, and a massive gallery space. We are dedicated to the creative process and film is a big part of that. Our goal is to help our clients shoot more film, more often through our services and workshops.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
OOOF, Covid-19 was a big reset for theFINDlab. Before it hit, we were hovering around 45 employees. Then it hit and everything came to a screaching halt. There were no weddings, there were no events, there were no family sessions happening so I had to furlough everyone who wasn’t on salary which ended up just being 5 of us. That went to 4 and then we rebuilt. We are defenitely a business that really benefited from receiving the PPP (2x). It got us through and we’ve built back with a team of 30 employees. We trimmed a lot of fat and were able to learn how to be way more efficient in our processes. We also learned to pivot. Instead of just developing, scanning, and editing, we opened up to more global film sales, workshops, and grew our presence worldwide. The big lesson was how to work the most effeciently.
Pricing:
- Dev/Scanning starts at $14
- Camera repair starts at $50
- Digital editing starts at .33/image
- We have film for some of the lowest prices on the planet
- Darkroom Starts at $25/hour, Studio time starts at $45/hour
Contact Info:
- Website: http://thefindlab.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thefindlab
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theFINDlab
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefindlab
- Other: https://thefindlab.ecwid.com/
Image Credits
All images by Jonathan Canlas (https://instagram.com/jonathancanlas)
