The Man Who Spreads Joy by Jessica Krieg

The family-run camera shop gives exposure to Irish photographers during lockdown

by Jessica Krieg

We talk on a Tuesday afternoon after John is back from mass where he heads every morning at 11:30. While he follows his morning ritual, his daughters Fiona and Cathy open up the shop. Located on Dublin 2’s Wexford Street walking into John Gunn’s camera shop feels more like walking into someone’s home than anything else. Every little bit of wall space that doesn’t show posters about upcoming events in the neighbourhood or ads for all kinds of camera equipment is plastered with family photos that were taken inside the shop over the last 5 decades they have been in business.

What was only a means to an end in the beginning, “to make money and have livelihood,” soon became a passion – not just for John but also for the rest of his family. He says, “It was a wonderful feeling when the first customer walked into the shop.” Earlier this year the Gunn’s celebrated their business’ 50th birthday.

“It’s fantastic,” he explains, after I ask him what it is like to be working with his family, all sharing the same passion. “You never have to explain why you are home late because they are with you,” he laughs warmheartedly. “Everyone just knows exactly what to do. And I now even have my granddaughters come in on the weekends, on Fridays and Saturdays. And they just love it. It was their own request to just come in and work here. It’s wonderful to have them all and they have terrific energy and it’s just fabulous to have them,” he elaborates a little more.

A little stuffy – but in a loving, lived-in kind of way – the inside of the small shop is filled with display cabinets full of cameras, a huge fridge filled with film rolls and everything else a photog-

rapher’s heart desires. We stand a little to the back of the shop amidst many boxes packed with envelopes of developed photos that are just waiting to be picked up by their owners, that make it a little hard to distinguish where shop floor ends, and stock room starts. John is happy to have made it through the lockdown and back to his normal routine as meeting people and socialising is “terribly important” to him. “I should be retired now for 26 years but I need people. People are important. People knock the edges off. That’s part of the reason why I’m not retired,” he tells me with a warm smile.

As they continued working behind closed shutters most of the time during the turmoil of Covid-19, they either posted the developed pictures and ordered film rolls to the customers on request or the customers came in person to pick them up. “We called them and asked, and a lot of people preferred coming in instead of getting it delivered,” he says surprised. I have had many lovely chats with John myself before this interview, so I can see why people rather come in person.

However, not everything went fluently during the lockdown. “We had a little post box outside the door so people could drop in their own dockets and films. That didn’t last long, because at some point, someone stole all the dockets in the box.” But even after this, people still kept dropping their dockets with their film into the box showing their trust and loyalty to the 50 years old business.

Very quickly It becomes clear that photographers from all over Dublin don’t just visit the shop for the professional advice, service, and high-quality prints but also for the warm welcome everyone gets who comes in and the wholesome energy John and his family emit while working.

While galleries and museums were still closed over the last lockdown in early March, John Gunn and his family tried giving the passers-by of Wexford Street a little bit of hope by showcasing their customers works on their shopfront window, leaving the shops shutters open most of the time.

Being overwhelmed by all the submissions and the large follower count they accumulated shortly after they created an Instagram account and posted about the open call, they started extending their little exhibition called “Spread Joy” to neighbouring buildings and the electricity box in front of their shop. Since the submissions didn’t stop, his daughters had the idea to send people out to paste the photos in guerrilla style all over Dublin. “Young people have all these new ideas, I am afraid I’m a little too old to come up with new stuff, but they’re great for it,” giving full credit for this project to his daughters, Fiona, and Cathy.

John is “just very delighted” by the fact that film photography has risen in popularity over the past few years, especially amongst the younger generation. “They seem to love the retro aspect. They are so used to taking pictures with their phones that they’re just surprised by the quality of film. It is lovely. The way I’m looking at it is, digital is wonderful, it’s incredibly sharp. But digital is very clinical whereas, I find, film is personal. It has a quality that seems to be more people oriented.”

To me, he didn’t just describe what film means to most people but also gave a beautiful description of what people love about his little shop. It’s not as clinical as other camera shops you come across in Dublin, but rather very personal and people oriented.

But he is also wary of his current success as film has not always been as popular as it is now, saying he “can’t possibly estimate,” the future of film. “As long as I’m able to get film, I think it’s going to sell. But the great danger is that the demand of film will dry up,” referring to camera brand Fuji, which stopped their production of film rolls last year.

Always open to help with creativity struggling photographers and being loved by so many analogue lovers, John’s family-owned business definitely has landmark standard within Dublin’s film community.