Local Businessmen Attack Proposed Student Agency, Charge Unfair Competition

The proposed Harvard Student Agencies passport photo service is meeting strong opposition from Harvard Square photographers, who claim the agency "would raise havoc" with their business.

The photograph agency, now under consideration by the HSA, will limit itself "at first" to passport sized photos taken and processed by students and sold at lower prices than those charged by local commercial firms.

A more ambitious HSA proposal including portraiture, miscellaneous photography and athletic shots was blocked in 1958 by criticism of "unfair competition" from merchants around the Square. It has been a stated HSA policy not to enter into competition with any local commercial enterprise.

Commercial Photographers Oppose New Plan

It appears that the new proposal will meet even stronger opposition. A. J. Weiner, of the Adrian Photography Studio, declared that the agency "would definitely cut into our passport photography business and hamper our plans for expansion. The new proposal is merely a more subtle version of the one which was defeated two years ago."

Paul Koby, the portrait photographer whose opposition was largely responsible for the defeat of the 1958 proposal, was even more emphatic. Contacted yesterday at his Mexico City hotel, Koby said, "As tax-paying citizens we photographers are very strongly opposed to the University's interference with legitimate business. This is unfair competition, and the loss of the passport business will put me out on the street."

Other commercial photographers felt the passport agency would be just the first step by the HSA to expand into portrait work and other types of photography.

John I. Donovan '57 said that the HSA had contacted him to help set up the agency. The original plan, he claimed, was that the HSA would finance an "extensive darkroom"--costing up to $5,000 and staffed with a full-time professional laboratory technician. To make such a project feasible, Donovan declared, the agency would contract for photographs of weddings, candid shots, and portraits.

Tony Ferranti, of the Ferranti-Dege Camera Shop, stated that the HSA had asked him for "counselling" early this year. He submitted a bid for the construction of a darkroom and for services to run the darkroom. The HSA, however, took no action.

"It would be absolutely impossible to build a photo lab that amateurs could use to make passport photos profitably," Ferrant said. "Existing facilities within the University are not efficient enough for commercial use," he added.

Local photographers feel that to remain in business the HSA concern will have to take on other work. Declared Ferranti: "If they build a lab they'll have to take on portraiture and commercial work to make it pay. Any expansion would cut into our business and we'll try to block it."

He continued: "With the Photo Services Department we have here the HSA agency would definitely hurt us. It would also definitely hurt our desire to expand this department."

Opposition is especially strong from student photographers, who fear that the HSA agency might expand to hurt their part-time profits from sales of free-lance photographs, mainly to the H.A.A. and the Alumni Bulletin.

Ferranti concluded: "I see no need for a passport photo agency at Harvard. For 40 cents you can go to a place in Scollay Square that will do the job--six photographs for two dollars. This is a lot cheaper than any amateur could possibly do it with any kind of a lab around here.