Jacobs Closes

Picture of the Jacobs camera store on Albion Street, Leeds.

I am not sure how but this story slipped by me and I only noticed it when I walked by the Jacobs camera shop on Albion St in Leeds city centre a couple of days back, and discovered it had closed. When I say closed I do not mean they had closed early for staff training but rather there was a notice on the window from the administrators.

Cecil Jacobs founded the company back in 1939 as a chemist shop in Leicester, later he started selling cameras. Cecil's son joined the business in 1975 and moved the company towards photography which was his passion. More recently the business expanded to 19 stores, employing 154 people.

There was a Jacobs photographic shop here in Leeds on Albion Street and I had been in there quite a few times. I had bought several bits of gear in the shop, a brolly, a case for my heavy duty tripod amongst others. I change lenses quite often and had I think a real problem with dust in my Canon 5D and the Jacobs manager was really helpful showing me how to clean the sensor with an Arctic Butterfly® brush.

I found the Jacobs employees passionate and knowledgeable about photography and invariably helpful. A few days back the administrators closed all the Jacobs stores, bar the one in Leicester which will remain open in the short term to handle stock clearance. Personally I think this is quite a blow for serious and not so serious photographers here in the UK. You try getting someone from Amazon to show you in person how to do something But more than that it is the employees, the people that have now lost their jobs that I am sorry for and I hope that they find something soon.

The above shot I kept wider that I might have to show that the premises next door is also a retail opportunity as it say in the window.