Kodak Express has been in business for decades, and when film was king, they printed hundreds of photographs every day.

Owner David Sousa remembers when they launched a one-hour printing service. “We introduced the first mini lab to Bermuda in 1984. The machine was manufactured in Pennsylvania by a company called Hope. We used to ‘hope’ the machine worked,” he joked.

“We used to do 120,000 rolls of film in a year — two for every person in Bermuda. That business disappeared overnight.”

That was then — when their mini lab was printing thousands of photographs from film, and this is now — the era of digital cameras, and cameras built into smart phones and iPads.

Mr Sousa has embraced this new world of technology, and has added more services and products as well. He said: “It is our online services which have proved to be very popular.” He said customers should visit Kodak Express’s website — www.kodakexpress.bm and order their prints online, or e-mail them to pictures@kodakexpress.bm. “Anything we get by 9am in the morning will be ready by 2pm,” he said. “We do all sizes up to eight by 10.”

He said they will even print a picture so that it is small enough to fit into the picture frame of a lady’s locket.

Or visit Kodak Express’ new shop, on the corner of Queen and Church Streets, and use their kiosk system to run prints that you have taken on your smart phone, iPad or digital camera.

Kodak Express has just moved their shop from the Washington Mall. He said: “We were in the Mall for a long time, and it was good to us.” Now, they hope that their new corner premises will give them additional exposure.

“It’s a high visibility location for us,” he said.

Mr Sousa explained the kiosk method is the most expensive way to produce prints but customers can come in and get them right away, while ordering online is the most economical.

The Kodak Express team, which includes Gary Williams and Robert DeSilva, can also provide large format printing, and they print on canvas as well as offering special finishes for photographs.

“We are the only full service laboratory in Bermuda — and we still process actual film,” he said, adding they can also develop photographs from very old negatives, and then save them digitally so their customer has a modern record of their pictures.

“We have three different processes in the shop as far as producing photographs is concerned. We have our Kodak Kiosk, which uses a dye-sublimination technique, we have a large format printer which uses archival inks, and we have a Noritsu Machine which can scan 35mm film and Advanced Photo System (APS) film.

“There are some customers who refuse to go digital — they come in with their film, and they get their pictures and their negatives in their hands.”

Among the special services that Kodak Express offers is photograph restoration. That old picture of your grandparents’ wedding, mildewed and discoloured, perhaps with a corner torn off? Now, you can get that restored using the most up-to-date technology. Mr Sousa has seen customers become emotional when they have seen these photographs, bringing family members to life again.

“We do a lot of photograph restoration — we restore old memories,” he said.

“The best one we ever did was a complete restoration of a very old six by 20 wedding photograph — only half of the original photo was intact. We could see the faces, but the bottom half of the photograph was completely missing — the wedding gown, the legs, shoes.

“What can be done today is simply mind-boggling. The lady whose photograph it was broke out in tears,” he said.

With the holiday season approaching, it is a gift to think about.

Restoration of photographs is possible as long as there is enough left of the photograph to scan, Mr Sousa explained.

“Restoration has become a big part of our business.”

The three-man Kodak Express team have also branched off into framing. “It is the newest addition to our business — custom framing. We started that slowly, about three years ago.”

Mr Sousa said Mr Williams and Mr DeSilva do most of that work. “We will frame anything — including a football jersey an for English football team, or a shirt for a rugby team.” Pointing to an example of one rugby shirt, he said: “We will put it into a shadow box, with custom framing — we have a selection of mouldings to choose from.

“Framing has proven to be a good piece of business — and our prices are very, very competitive,” he said.

“We also do gallery wrapping for canvas work,” he said, explaining this means wrapping the picture right around the frame to give the art a greater sense of depth.

Kodak Express frames the work of many of Bermuda’s best-known artists.

“We do all of artist and gallery owner Lisa Rego’s work, and for Vivienne Hayward who is known for her Bermuda-themed cards and other souvenir items, as well as Barbara Finsness of The Island Shop. We do 90 percent of her framing work and all of her printing.”

Kodak Express also have a small retail section where they sell memory cards, chargers and batteries. “We also have frames, photograph albums, film and even disposable, one-time use cameras.”