For 47 years, Karl's Cameras witnessed great strides in photography, including a growing popularity of color film, the demise of flash bulbs and the growth of electronic flash, one-hour photofinishing, the introduction - and retirement - of the "super-8" movie format and a public retreat from celluloid home movies as technology coaxed home moviemakers away from film and to videotape.

David and Betty Mills, who, for the past 25 years have owned Karl's Cameras Inc., said the business has provided a good livelihood for them, but it's time to move to a new chapter in their lives, a chapter that includes more of helping others than making money. They plan to close the store on May 19, unless they sell their remaining inventory before that date.

Karl's Cameras has moved a few times since Karl Matthiesen founded it on East Front Street in 1960, with its latest, and final, location being 3603 S. Broadway Ave.

"I'm retiring because the business has been very good," Mills said. "I'm about to turn 68 and I'm ready to do other things. Tyler's been very good to me, and I feel like I'm ready to give something back to Tyler."

With the changes in equipment and methods over the years, Karl's Cameras had to adapt to handle the latest trends. And as the digital world took over photography, it continued to adapt, even as the electronics and discount retailers started getting a greater share of the digital business.

The digital revolution made it necessary to trim employment levels, Mills said, and because the majority of the digital photography business was going to large stores and electronics retailers, Karl's Cameras had to adapt late in its life to remain viable, and that meant beefing up its professional services.

"And the photofinishing end of it, of course, every drugstore in town started putting in one-hour labs," Mills said. "Our method of survival was going into the big print business, copy work, ancillary services, doing things that they could not do."

This included slide duplication and producing presentation slides for medical professionals, he said, before video projectors became mainstream equipment.

"I had one machine back there that we spent $240,000 on," he said. "It was necessary to stay up with the digital age. Now it's worth about $65,000 or $70,000 in less than seven years."

"But it would required a lot of extra time on our part to do that, as well as another money investment, and we just decided that we would rather retire while we were on top," she said.

(Courtesy Photo) SIGN OF THE TIMES: Karl's Cameras Inc. called several locations home during its 47 years in Tyler. This photo shows a sign touting speedy photo processing when the store was in Olde English Village. Mills said he was not schooled in photography, but he "fell in love with pictures" after his parents bought him his first camera when he was 8 or 9. He then started doing his own darkroom work, and continued to grow in the profession.

Mills' experience included operating his own studio and black-and-white laboratory. In the mid-1960s, he worked at Dee's Photo Supply in Shreveport.

Over the years, the store included a camera department and a card department. In 1982, David and Betty Mills purchased the camera department from Matthiesen.

Mrs. Mills did not have a photographic background, although she did help her husband with darkroom work when he worked at Dee's in Shreveport. In Tyler, she worked in real estate.

Mrs. Mills might have begun in photography as the person who developed prints in a manual darkroom, but she learned how to work an enlarger and, finally, how to take very good pictures.

"I've judged the photography contest for the East Texas Fair for a number of years, along with a couple of other judges. I might add that the two times she won I was not the judge that year," Mills said, laughing.

For Mills, that includes working as a reserve deputy with the Smith County Sheriff's Department. For his wife, it means continuing to help in disaster relief through Christian and humanitarian organizations.

"I go out on patrol; I do everything that any other officer would do," Mills said. "I check out a patrol car. I put in a lot of hours. I feel like if I can help someone now, that's sort of a payback for all of the good things that have been given to me in Tyler."

"I helped cook 3,100 meals, three times a day," she said. "For instance, my job was to get up at 2:30 in the morning and scramble 20 gallons of eggs."

"For two weeks, we gave 24-hour guard service - the two of us - to the supplies down there," he said. "The best sleeping accommodation started out on the ground."

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