Adolph Gassers, San Francisco

Last week I was in San Francisco. I took my XPan with me, and expected to be able to buy some decent film in situ - surely film is still alive in the heartland of f64 et al ?

Well it appears not. The only place I could find which even admitted to stocking film, Discount Camera (which seems like an ok place) only had some old Sensia. I wanted my favourite Velvia 100F. They suggested I visit Adolph Gasser’s (that’s A-Dolf, of course). Beautiful website by the way, so retro, so 1995.

So I did.  I found my way to the film section, and encountered an overweight, grumpy soap dodger who seemed to resent having to deal with a customer.

I asked if they have Velvia 100F, and was treated to a condescending lecture which informed me that Merkins didn’t like Velvia 100F, and it had been replaced with Velvia 100S (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist in the US of A or anywhere else). I was also informed that 100F has been out for “over 15 years” and was no longer available.

Having had quite enough of this blatantly untrue and / or pig-ignorant bullshit, I decided to cut my losses, buy some Provia 100F, and get out in the fresh air.

Well, imagine my surprise when I saw this ad, this evening, on the American photo.net website…

So, in the hope that this might get Googled by somebody somewhere, Do Not Visit Adolph Gassers in San Francisco. And forget any idea you might have that all Americans are service oriented….