Dominic Lewis: So while I was in college, I was studying engineering and also on the weekends I was dabbling into photography. I remember sitting down at my desk and playing with my camera, and I was supposed to be studying for a calculus test. Something has to give. I'm probably going to give up photography or I'm going to give up this. I decided to leave. I dropped out. My name is Dominic Lewis and I run Photodom, NYC, an analog camera store based in Brooklyn, New York. I wanted to create my brand shaped around people who look like me or who love things that I love. So I was like, let me come to New York because this is where this brand is going to grow and take legs. Selling clothing and accessories was honestly the first way that I was able to get into the market of creating things for photographers because I felt like it's more of a lifestyle brand than just a camera store.
My role at Photodom is a little bit of everything. When we initially started film processing, we were doing everything by hand, which is extremely tedious. We were doing like 50 rolls a day max.
Once we started showing sales, we were able to purchase a film processor through Square Loans, and that helped us expedite the process. Then I did it again to get a film scanner that was even more money. So it's really helpful to be able to get these things that we normally wouldn't be able to afford and that can pay off over time, which customers love because honestly now we have the best equipment that you can possibly use.
Square has really cool products like team management, which can be used to pay my team and also give them a schedule. It's kind of cool to build up a team and have them take these roles on delegate that authority. Square kind of handles everything from the websites all the way down to the POS that you use in store. See you again. Once they shoot their first roll, they never stop. Square Loyalty program is really cool because people can get stuff from the store for free just by being loyal to us. So definitely helps grow the business and keeps our customers coming back outside.
What happened after the world shut down? I wasn't really able to go out, take pictures anymore. Then the George Floyd protest started. I was just going out to find different things to document, so I kind of made a connection with some of these other photographers who are like me, who are in the same journey to tell our stories. I remember the second day we were in Flatbush and seeing so many people, y'all never come down here, but this is my neighborhood. So we're trying to bring the community together in a physical space.
In November of 2021, we acquired this studio space to bring back that community that was lost during Covid or weren't photographers during Covid. It's cool because our store has a lot of photographers who are professionals, some are beginners, some are semi professional, and there's always things that can be learned from each level.
So the thing about photography is that it's real and it can really show someone who they are or people who look like them. My camera really allowed me to be free. Anybody can be great at photography. You just have to have your own purpose behind it.
