Marketing Photography: Selling Popular Photography on the British High Street

This 12,000-word chapter examines the central issues involved in the marketing of popular photography on the high street using, as a central case study, the British photographic chemist, Boots. As a ‘household name’ with a prominent and trusted retail presence, Boots has, for many years, been synonymous with mass-market commercial film development and processing. First establishing a connection to photography in the late nineteenth century through its origins in dispensing pharmaceuticals, Boots’ photographic department progressively expanded to offer a range of own-brand and in-house photographic options that parallel, and contribute to, technological developments and historic shifts in the popular consumption of the medium. From the initial sale of home-processing supplies through to the boom and bust of online photo services, the varied commercial positions and fortunes of Boots provide a pertinent model for examining the role of the market in shaping the use and understanding of photography in everyday practice.