Welcome to our twentieth Bergen County Camera Customer Spotlight. This monthly posting features a customer who’s made an impression on us. They might have grown in their understanding of photography, gained a mastery of the craft and / or have become a strong advocate of our way of doing business in the world of photography. During the next month you will see this customer’s images displayed on our digital signs in store, in our emails, blog posts and social media.
Reed Gidez is our customer spotlight for the month of June. We hope you both enjoy and are inspired by this new addition to In Focus and look forward to your comments and suggestions. Below you will find a word from Reed, followed by some of his images in the gallery below.
“I can trace my interest in photography back to 1966 when our family was about to to head to France for a year while our dad was doing medical research at a university in Marseilles. For the trip, he purchased a Pentax Spotmatic with a 50mm lens. I thought it was the coolest thing and it was with him everywhere he traveled during that year. There were images from nearly all of the places we visited in Europe. In the years after we returned home, we looked forward to the periodic slide shows and the stories our parents would recount of each of the places we’d visited. It was in these slide shows and the telling of the stories behind each image that I learned how every picture can tell a story.
A few years later, I was headed back to France as an eighth grader to spend the summer with a friend from my first visit. For that trip, my father bought me my first camera – an Olympus 35 EC2 and for me, that camera was magic. I was now able to capture and tell my own stories.
Fast forward to 1981 and as a newly minted college grad with a recently acquired Canon AT-1, I was ready to step up my game and buy a new lens. My dad and I went to BCC and with help and advice from Bob G., I left with a new lens. 38 years later, I’m still a customer.
I recently switched to the Fujifilm X system and I am enjoying photography even more. From travels out west along Route 66 to the beautiful light of Cape Cod, I still get a thrill every time I press the shutter release!
This past February, my 20 year old son decided he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and father so we headed off to BCC so he could get expert guidance on choosing a camera. Now, 3 generations of my family have been customers and dear friends of the BCC family.
Those family gatherings from long are largely responsible for my love of photography and videography, as well as shaping my business of capturing family stories and histories on video to preserve the faces, voices and stories for future generations.
The Pentax and my original Olympus are long gone but the constant in my photographic journey has been my second family at Bergen County Camera.”
You can see more of Reed’s work on his Instagram account @jrgidez
