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Art's Cameras Plus offer numerous events throughout the year. We also like to keep you up-to-date with our latest news. Please check below for the latest News & Events from Art's Cameras Plus!
Art's Classes & Workshops
Every photographer’s goal is to shoot better images. At Art’s, you will become more knowledgeable about your equipment and will learn photographic techniques that will help you accomplish this mission. Click here for our calendar of upcoming classes and events.
Special Classes & Workshops
Art’s proudly partners with top camera and lens manufacturers to offer classes and workshops with information specific to their brands. Art’s is chosen to host these outstanding events, taught by company experts, as they periodically become available throughout the year. Join our email list from our home page so you don’t miss taking part in these special offerings.
 The Morning Blend TV Show
Watch for Art’s Cameras Plus on The Morning Blend airing in the Milwaukee area at 9am M-F on Today's TMJ4. Art’s will offer the latest and best in cameras, and prints, gifts, sales information. Don’t miss it!
Watch our latest segment.
 Waukesha County Fair
Art’s Cameras Plus will again be a proud sponsor of the Waukesha County Fair, and be the designated day sponsor on Friday, July 22. Art’s Cameras Plus balloons will be distributed to kids, and you may just get your photo taken at the Fair by Art’s staff members. Fairgoers, make sure to come to the spectacular Art’s tent for a chance at a camera kit giveaway, for photo tips, techniques, battery & memory card needs, and the wonderful photos on display. Can’t wait to see you at the Fair! www.waukeshacountyfair.com/
Location photography for Waukesha County Fair and the Bob and Brian Open
Art’s Cameras Plus was busy this summer providing location photography for the 2010 Waukesha County Fair and the 2010 Bob and Brian open. Click below to view each gallery.
An idea that still clicks
Although many camera stores have closed, some compete in digital age
By Doris Hajewski of the Journal Sentinel - Oct. 16, 2006
At a time when camera shops across the country are going out of business, Art's Camera Plus has opened its third store, on S. 76th St. near Southridge.
"People will ask us how we're able to compete with big boxes," owner Tony Miresse said.
He ticks off answers, most of which boil down to two things: staying competitive on price, and providing service that people can't get from a big box store or the Internet.
Art's was founded by Tony's father, Art Miresse, in 1967 as a leased department in a Spartan Atlantic discount store on S. 27th St. Now Art's is one of a shrinking number of camera shops in town, a group that includes Mike Crivello's, which started in 1969.
"When I started there were 30 or 35 camera stores in Milwaukee," Tony said. The youngest of Art's six children, Miresse, 43, started working in one of his dad's stores when he was 16.
Camera store operators were hit by a triple whammy over the past 15 years. Big box stores and discounters expanded and offered cameras at low prices; Internet companies sprang up and did the same, allowing shoppers to compare prices while sitting at home in their pajamas; and digital cameras were introduced.
In the past five years, sales of digital cameras at food, drug and mass merchandisers, excluding Wal-Mart, have tripled, according to ACNielsen, a Chicago-based research firm.
In that same period, the number of independent camera shops has dropped by almost half, according to the Photo Marketing Association International. There are abut 4,500 independents in the U.S. now, compared with 9,300 in 1999.
The advent of the digital age, in particular, proved deadly to many photo equipment suppliers and processors. In Milwaukee, Riemers Photo Materials Co. was forced to liquidate in 2002 by a creditor. Crivello's sold several locations to Wolf Camera, which in turn sold out to Ritz Camera Centers.
"It's very difficult for independent camera shops right now, because of the sort of vast commoditization of the industry and the move to digital," said Neil Stern, a partner at McMillan Doolittle, a Chicago retail consulting firm. "The independent shops that are surviving are going after the specialized niche of the professional or semi-professional photographer or serious amateur who still needs a lot of personal service and particular equipment."
Dimitrios Delis, marketing research director for the photo marketing association, said that although most people blame the digital age for the decline of the independents, the move by mass marketers into in-store photo processing also took a huge toll. Since 1999, the number of mini-labs in chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens and others has risen from 18,000 to 34,000.
Taking the steps
Art's managed to stay in business because the company embraced the change instead of fearing it, Miresse said. But it wasn't cheap. The family spent $250,000 for each of the digital processing studios that were installed in Art's stores.
Many of the independents who went out of business just couldn't afford to do that, Delis said.
The new Art's store is in a former bank branch, at 4981 S. 76th St. Miresse has retained the bank's drive-up windows, where customers can pick up photos now, instead of cash.
Inside, Miresse has installed a digital editing suite aimed at soccer moms, although he dislikes the trendy moniker. The area is decorated with pendant lamps and a blue and brown area rug, and it has a play area for the kids.
"Last year was the first year that females bought more cameras than males," Miresse explained, citing national research from the marketing association.
Art's isn't the only camera retailer looking to appeal to women. Best Buy tested a small format store called Studio D in Naperville, Ill., for two years. The store offered a full schedule of classes in digital photography in an upscale setting.
But Best Buy closed the store in August; Miresse believes the Minneapolis-based chain couldn't find a way to make it profitable.
Even so, Delis said his trade group believes that the boutique format will be the growth vehicle for the future for small, independent camera stores.
The photo processing computers at Art's can do more, with greater ease, than those in chain stores, Miresse said. He has six of them in the new store, so customers generally won't have to wait in line, and can take more time editing.
Art's started offering classes for customers in 1994, and added digital classes in 1998. This past weekend, Art's co-sponsored a fall color photography outing in Door County. For $450, participants get meals, instruction and the use of high-end Canon equipment.
In addition to the new store, Art's has locations in West Allis and Waukesha.
Crivello's operates three stores, in Brookfield, Whitefish Bay and Shorewood, and is still owned by the founding family. Crivello's also offers classes, at its Blue Mound Road store in Brookfield.
The biggest challenge for Crivello's these days is competition from Internet retailers, general manager Mike Wilbur said.
"It's a blessing and a curse," he said. Shoppers get product information online, but they also find sites with prices so low that no brick-and-mortar store can match them, he said. In some cases, though, there may be a problem with an online retailer, and the Internet isn't as well-regulated, Wilbur said.
In general, though, the local camera shops say they compete on price with the big boxes because to survive, they have to.
Miresse said a decision to join a national buying group in 1997 was crucial to his stores' success, because it allows him to buy merchandise from manufacturers at the same prices as his larger competitors.
Miresse and his wife bought the family business from his father in 2000.
Art, who is 84, was active in the business for a long time, but he finally decided that the digital technology was more than he wanted to deal with, Tony said with a smile.
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