A Billion Santa Photos Over 80 Years
The first Santa Claus photograph inspired billions of people
The first Santa Claus photograph was taken 80 years ago this month in a small town outside of Seattle, Washington.
In 1943, downtown’s Erstwhile Frederick and Nelson department store, which is now the Nordstrom building today.
It all started with a Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff photographer named French. He took a few weeks’ leaves for his newspaper photography job and set up a complete Santa Claus photo studio with his newly founded Arthur and Associates Photography company.
This kicked off the first-holiday tradition
French ran the company for 20 years till he died in 1962; his widow, Cherie, loved seeing the kids with Santa Claus and wanted the tradition to continue.
She didn’t have the business and photography skills as her husband; she knew that was not her unique ability.
The only other people that knew how the Santa Claus photography business operated was the photo lab that developed the pictures for French.
Cherie believed in this holiday tradition and wanted it to continue. She decided to pass the Santa Claus event photography business to the couple that developed the photographs for her husband, the Viydos family.
As I write these words in 2022, their grandson Olin Viydo still runs the business. According to his LinkedIn page, he is vice president of Operations at Arthur Associates Holiday Photography, now the oldest Santa photo company in the country.
The online shopping experience
We all have seen the death of the mall and shopping centers worldwide going bankrupt or simply closing their doors without warning; this will continue to happen as we move into the future.
The online shopping experience with Amazon is so good. Why would anyone want to drive to a Mall to buy something that is likely mainly more expensive?
It reminds me of the yellow taxis and the creation of Uber; the experience was so bad with the taxi industry that it forced someone to see an opportunity for what we know as Uber today, or was it the technology that was so good it put the taxis out of business? The same could be true for Shopping Malls.
The changing buying habits of shoppers not traveling to malls drastically changed the Santa Claus event photography business.
According to my sources, the largest Santa photography company is located in New Jersey and is contracted with malls properties owners to service hundreds of malls across North America, but as we know, Santa is a magical person, not a business, right? *cough* *cough*
“We are going to see a lot of Santa Claus looking for work in 2023.” said one shopper as we walked past the Santa photo spot in a mall in Salem, New Hampshire. All I could think of at the time was my version of a Poem by Clement C. Moore
Twas the night before Christmas
when all through the mall
Not a creature was stirring
not even a mouse…
… To the top of the Sears department store, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!”
That’s what the shoppers did, dash away
Today event photographers can set up a studio anywhere with Santa Claus as the Hero for families to book 15- to 30-minute time slots for candid photos with the big guy in red and leave with a stack of printed photographs in minutes on site.
New significant holiday traditions are being created for an experience. Enchant Christmas, a production company that recently partnered with the Hallmark channel, they have Santa Claus as a big part of that winter village setting, a stroll under a light maze or ice skating rink, which millions of visitors have experienced.
Jeremy Kisner, a private wealth company, believes the Shopping Mall will be extinct; as an investment person, he is unequivocal and quotes, “do not invest in commercial real estate tire to shopping malls.”
You can go to www.deadmalls.com and see which mall will close near you.
Make sure you bring the family to see Santa Claus somewhere near you; some traditions can not disappear; let’s keep French, the News photographer who created so many positive memories for billions of people all around the world to believe!
Merry Christmas, don't stop believing.
PS: Building a business is hard, but you don’t need to recreate the wheel. Get a simple growth plan; take my free assessment to grow your business. This one plan has helped so many people before you, and it’s your turn.
