We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alejandro Flores a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alejandro, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Kris learned the craft of B&W film photography back in her high school days through a Chicago arts program called gallery 37. Alejandro started his analog journey by purchasing his first film camera off craigslist. Since then he has taught himself how to develop and work with different film stocks as well as manual 35mm/120mm cameras.

Kris: I think i would have interned longer with a wedding photographer here in Chicago, Steven E. Gross. Steven is a “film” specialty photographer. It was a fantastic opportunity i had cut short due to overloading my first year college semester. His studio was fully equipped on the first level with lights, backdrops, and an entire wall of manual film cameras. His basement studio was a complete darkroom with his own drying drum and drying racks for all his larger prints. In hindsight i know i would have been able to spend time printing and perfecting some tricks of the trade, I believe printing in the darkroom is a whole other part of crafting your film, its a beautiful thing. Now that we are running our own business adventure from home, i would have loved to offer people 1/1 B&W prints if they had some shots they were interested in framing. Still something for us to look forward too once we have a larger space. A skill i learned in my B&W photo class is critiquing. Its proven to be essential in looking at our work both as individuals, & together, but especially as Dos Fotos. We want to question our process, fine tune, and hopefully one day share and teach others.

Alejandro: I would have shot more freely with film when i first started taking interest in analog photography. Looking back it was more affordable and accessible back then to purchase, and make mistakes. I would have saved a lot more of my peel apart film. LOL. A skill i have learned through film photography, is patience and stream lining my process, both proving to be essential in what we do now with Dos Fotos. Preparing chemicals, and having back up supplies is definitely a part of what makes processing film a bit easier. Knowing how the chemistry works and being able to anticipate my next steps helps me develop efficiently. What obstacles have stood in the way? Money, as you may or may not know, analog photography is an expensive hobby. Equipment, cameras, film stocks, chemicals, all cost more than your average digital camera. If money wasn’t a factor, we would probably be able to learn more from having a studio space equipped with all the workings to learn and play.

Alejandro, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are an analog duo, partners both in life and business, running a small at home film lab out of the north west side of Chicago. After a few years of developing for ourselves and recognizing the need for a local film lab, we decided to offer services to the film community. We offer B&W + color film development and scanning for 35mm and 120. By providing these services we’re filling in the need of film development that has slowly disappeared from the mainstream. What sets us apart from other larger film labs is our approachable style of business. We engage our customers through social media and sometimes on a one on one face to face meet up. We pride ourselves with being open to anyone of any film shooting level. often times bigger labs or store fronts can seem daunting to the inexperienced user. Since we currently do not have a physical store front, that helps us in engaging with the customer through Dm’s or emails.

What makes us proud is that we are local, open to anyone, and to be frank, young. We are Chicago and we provide for Chicago, currently our Film DropBox is on the North West Side but we are happy to hopefully open up near downtown and south sides of Chicago. We aim to be as easily accessible to anyone that can shoot film, from the hardened Medium format user to the person using a Kodak Disposable at a birthday party. We are a simple DM away from any and every question.

Although we aren’t freshly 21. we are able to stay in touch with whats going on and be apart of the film community. Wether its that teenager using their dads camera for the first time or someone older thats rediscovering film. We have our ears to the streets.
We are DIY in its truest form, a hand developing film lab means we are handcrafting the chemicals and taking the time and care handling your film. The dropoff is in Chicago and the developing/scanning is in Chicago so not only will your film be taken care of the turnaround time with be quick as well.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Our future goals is to Live Our Art.

One of our present goals is to have an Artist Residency. In our instance our A.I.R would be provided with up to 3 rolls of film developed and scanning at a discounted rate. Shooting film is expensive, renting out a space if you don’t already rent/own one is expensive, printing out your work is expensive. All those things combined can put a damper on someone trying to create with film, so we would offer that residency quarterly to one individual our of a pool of candidates to help offset the costs of being a film photographer.

Another one of our future goals a year or so from now is to put a percentage of a sales aside to form a micro-grant geared towards creative mothers, in film or in any creative media. Dos Fotos is also a family, so we recognize the difficulty a mother encounters when prioritizing children over their creative needs. We want mothers to be supported and validated to continue their creative works.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For us, its when someone compliments us on a photo that seems to be very nostalgic to them. Brings them warm fuzzy memories. It opens us up to a dialogue getting to know the person complimenting us. Knowing our art became relatable to them lets us know we are doing something right.

Contact Info:

• Website: Dosfotoschicago
• Instagram: dosfotoschi