How He Filled a Gap In The Market for European and Destination Film Photographers

by D'Arcy Benincosa

It’s pretty rare to find yourself in a scenario where no one else is doing the same thing you are. If you look around and find yourself flying solo with no one else throwing metaphorical elbows to get ahead? Consider yourself ahead of the game. You identified a need before anybody else–now’s the time to meet it.

Albert Roig, my guest on today’s episode of the Play It Brave podcast, found himself in that very position when he established Carmencita Film Lab. Before Carmencita came on the scene, a lot of European photographers were sending their film across the sea to America. Their film was forced to make a lengthy, international journey simply because there weren’t options for high-quality, personalized film scanning in Europe. As a film lover who studied the ins and outs of film scanning and developing from Jon Canlas of The Find Lab, Albert realized he had the power to meet a growing demand for Europe’s fine art photography movement. After joining forces with a friend who happened to own a film scanner, Carmencita was off to the races. Need, meet solution.

Key Takeaways:

Sometimes it just takes one special moment or person to enter into our lives in order to get us on the path we should be on.
European photographers and creatives are up against traditions that tell them not to do things differently or risky.
Photography is still emerging as a viable career, especially in other parts of the world. If you’re a photographer in Europe, you’re a bit of a pioneer if you’re delivering more than just photos, but a high-end creative experience.
Albert worked under Jon Canlas at The Find Lab to learn the craft of developing film and running a film lab.
Before Carmencita came on the scene, a lot of European photographers were sending their film to America because there weren’t options for high-quality, personalized scanning in Europe.
Do what you feel called to, not what you think you have to do because somebody else is doing it that way.
Creativity is sort of the perfume that emanates from the garden that we are nurturing as gardeners. It’s everywhere, surrounding us all the time. Creativity is in every part of the process of creating a film photograph.