Marquette Photo Supply Owner Joe Herbert View Full Caption

CHICAGO LAWN — Joe Herbert doesn’t smile for pictures.

He always preferred to be on the other end of the camera — a boyhood hobby that became his life’s work 70 years ago when he opened Marquette Photo Supply on 63rd Street next door to his late father’s barbershop.

“I started taking pictures for weddings and things like that. Around the end of World War II, people started to have money, so I opened a little store,” Herbert said. “Back then you could hardly get camera stuff. So, whatever I could get, I could sell pretty easily.”

A lifetime later, Herbert, 90, still mans the counter at his little store — one of the city’s last independent photo shops — and has no plans to close up shop.

“I guess I could have retired if I wanted to, but I still enjoy it. It keeps my mind going. Keeps me active,” he said. “You spend so much time there it’s like you’re married to it."

Mark Konkol says Herbert has rolled with the punches with advances in photograph technology:

Herbert was 20 years old when he opened Marquette Photo Supply. Back then he spent most of his time in the darkroom developing negatives for neighborhood folks.

Despite all the things that changed about the camera business — the evolution from black-and-white film to color film to digital cameras and smartphones with no film at all, not to mention competition from big box discount stores and the Internet — Herbert managed to keep up with the times.

“You’ve got to be able to roll with the punches. People ask me if I’m mad that cameras went digital. I’m not,” he said. “I tell them that digital cameras let people see the pictures they’re making without having to wait. And that’s great.”

Ironically, the same reason that Herbert opened the camera shop — “camera stuff” is hard to find — helps keeps his business viable today.

Photojournalists, hobbyists, artists and college students keep coming back because it’s one of the few places in town stocked with hard-to-find equipment, film, chemicals and large-format photo paper.

Marquette Photo Supply in Chicago Lawn has been open for 70 years. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Mark Konkol

“There is a guy from way out in Indiana who comes here every time he visits family, and before he goes home he stocks up on darkroom chemicals that he just can’t get where he lives,” Herbert said.

But selling rare camera gear isn’t what makes the 90-year-old camera salesman happy.

“The thing I love most is that I’ve met so many great people. Important people. And they’ve become my friends here,” he said. “My mother told me to treat people the way I want to be treated. So they come in with questions and I try to help them.”

Just the other day a customer came in to ask how to salvage negatives soaked in dog urine, and, of course, Ol’ Joe helped save the day.

“I got him some Photoflow, which is a water softener, so all he’s got to do to save them is resoak them, put them in Photoflow and hang them up,” Herbert said. “People have problems; I do my best to help.”

And his customers love him back.

“Joe is the absolute best,” former Sun-Times photojournalist Scott Stewart said. “The guy knows cameras backwards and forwards, and always he’s gone out of his way to help with whatever I need. He’s one of a kind. It’s so great that his place is still around.”

Herbert said there’s no secret to keeping a mom-and-pop business open for 70 years. His best advice for small-business owners is to understand what they’re getting into.

“If you want to go into business, you have to love what you’re doing. You have to be persistent. It’s your business, and that means 24-7,” he said. “It’s your baby. It’s part of the family.”

If you want to see what he means, Herbert can show you.

Inside the camera shop, there’s a door that leads to his father’s barbershop, where everything — beautiful Art Deco vanities, Chicago-made barber chairs and even the framed photos of Chicago Lawn business leaders on the wall — remains almost exactly how it was on the day the shop closed.

If Herbert gives you a peek, have your camera ready — you just might snap a picture of him smiling.

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