A CONDENSED HISTORY OF
CALYPSO IMAGING, INC...

Three friends, Joe Levine, Richard Gordon and Helen Wallis, started a photographic gallery in the beach town of Santa Cruz, California around 1970. We called it Gallery 115 (after Stieglitz’s New York Gallery ‘291’). Although the gallery ultimately failed we did have some great gallery openings with an abundance of photo talk, food, wine, people and fine photographs on the walls. We showed the photographs of Ansel Adams, Jerry Uelsmann, Judy Dater, Jack Welpott, Wynn Bullock, Ralph Gibson, and many others. (I could have bought Ansel’s "Moonrise" at the time if only I had had the foresight or the $60!) We sold cameras, supplies and photo books, taught workshops and rented darkrooms.

Later we processed B&W film in tanks and made prints in trays for the public. (I can’t believe we once printed 5000 8x10 B&W prints for Atari Corporation upstairs in the darkroom, in trays, during a hot summer and without air conditioning. It was awful but we did get the job done.) Still later we offered Cibachrome prints in a roller transport processor which we had dragged up the front stairs, through the front door and installed it in what had been the gallery. Thanks to Rod Johnson’s printing skills we made many a fine print. With the departure of the gallery Richard and Helen moved on to do their own photography art things. I stayed on to figure how to make a living at Gallery 115 now named Calypso Color Labs after the Greek demigoddess and the music of my birthplace Bermuda.

We moved the business to Santa Clara and embraced the corporate world. I bought a suit and hit the road to market Calypso as a one stop shopping photographic emporium. We grew and then grew again to thirty-five employees, twelve thousand square feet of lab space and with many of the largest companies in Silicon Valley as clients.

Fifteen years later around 1994 (I did say this was a condensed history) and I might add much earlier than many other labs, we took up digital tools. We offered drum scanning, digital murals, high-end film output, creative services and industrial and trade show graphics. In 1998 we downsized, returned to our art roots and focused on the aesthetics of the images we produce. We now teach digital workshops and have LightJet photographic digital print clients in most of the U.S. and a few other countries. Our business mainstay is the Nature, Landscape, Wild Life, Fine Art and Travel markets. We cater to the known and soon to be known and have gotten to work with photographers such as: Frans Lanting, Galen Rowell, Harvey Lloyd, Karen & Kennan Ward, Charlie Cramer, Bill Atkinson, Joe Holmes, Art Wolfe, Keith Walklet, Annette Botaro, Jim Stimson, Gary Crabbe, William Neil and others too numerous to mention. These are all fine people that have been enormously helpful to Calypso Imaging by lending us their names, images, expertise, friendship and good will.

Barbara my wife, (vice president of Calypso & life partner) and I have legions of people to thank for their contributions to the evolution of this Company. Even a condensed history must pay tribute to the essential people.

Thanks to our entire current staff at Calypso Imaging. Thanks to Mike Chambers for technical wizardry, Scott Batdorff for loyalty and management, Mike Lombardi & Kathy for financial intelligence, John Shafer for printing skills and unpretentious vision, Bob Burns of Ilford Inc. a good man, and Kimberly Wines for her savvy and charm. From the distant past we thank Franklin Avery, Todd Tsukushi, Joel Levick and Rod Johnson.