When Karl Kimbler talks about teaching photography, he means more than explaining what a light meter is. “I think of myself as a social activist, and this is my little contribution,” says the onetime student of sociology. “Instead of being passive receivers, we’ve helped people become active participants in creating visual images.”
Amateur photographers from all over Central Virginia have been coming to Kimbler’s tidy storefront on Third Street for classes and darkroom access since his business, Photo Arts, opened in 1998. Kimbler, who’s been involved in photography since he was a teenager, also has an interest in education. The business was the perfect amalgam, he says: “The educational aspect was alive, the visual was alive, I could still focus on my personal photography and not slug it out as a day to day commercial photographer.”
After growing during each of its first four years, Photo Arts recently underwent remodeling and has re-emerged as GOvisual, with a new computer lab and expanded offerings. These include digital photo, digital video and Internet classes. It’s partly a practical response to a changing photographic landscape. Especially in the amateur realm, Kimbler foresees a rapid shift toward digital photography and a resulting need for re-education: “People will have a new set of tools they’ll need to learn.”
But Photo Arts has always had another important function, that of a community center where photographers could make social connections. “Here, people come together to learn, share and benefit from associations with other photographers,” he says. He should know. Recently married, Kimbler met his wife at Photo Arts.
Kimbler relishes his role as a matchmaker, and wants to continue fostering relationships in the brave new digital world. Technology can be an instrument of connection or isolation, he believes, depending on how it’s used. On the positive side, he says, “You can have your own website, and it can show up in a search engine in Indonesia, South Africa, the Middle East. People are going to feel more connected.”
On the other hand, “I don’t like the picture of somebody sitting alone in their bedroom being glued to a screen.” He believes society is still in the early stages of adapting to the impact of an ever-increasing flow of real-time imagery.
Kimbler hopes GOvisual’s contribution will be to use time-tested models of education—like group learning in a classroom—to encourage a more community-minded use of new technology. “It’s about people plugging in and sharing, rather than sitting on the couch and receiving,” he says.
Even as Kimbler embraces the possibilities of new media, though, he plans to keep his business grounded in the traditional processes that have always been its flagship. “I’ll keep the old alive and well,” he says, adding that computer-based processes still don’t reproduce the magic of the darkroom. “The No. 1 thing I hear from people working in the darkroom for the first time is ‘This is exciting.’ People for generations have been seeing that image come up off the paper in the developer and have been feeling the same way.”