Antonio del Solar picks up his phone when this newspaper calls, somewhat agitated. He tells us with reservations that he cannot serve us at that moment because he has 50 young people waiting on the street to enter his store. A few days ago a video on TikTok triggered visits to this legendary place in the Chamberí neighborhood in Madrid.
In reality, it all starts from a misunderstanding. The young woman who uploaded the video to TikTok included a somewhat vague message: “If you like analog cameras or photography, Antonio is retiring and is in liquidation.”
That Antonio is retiring is true - the man is closer to 80 than 70 - although it would be more appropriate to say that he has been in the "retirement process" for some years: he opens the store whenever he feels like it. Or like in this case, when he becomes famous fleetingly and suddenly. It's not the first time it happens.
What does not completely correspond to reality is that Antonio is liquidating his stock. Those who come to the store will not find the material that he is condensing in his store at a bargain price. The prices of the cameras and lenses that he sells are affordable, but Antonio does not undersell.
This journalist met Antonio del Solar last December. He summoned us, along with a team from Spanish Television, to talk about the return of chemical photography.
Antonio del Solar's location is not a camera store, although many think that's what it is. It is a repair shop for all kinds of photographic material. This veteran professional has been dedicated to it for decades. Some of these cameras and his accessories are sold in his tiny store (it was an odyssey for the television crew to be able to record in that small place).
Antonio del Solar is an icon among veteran photographers from the capital and even from outside Madrid. He could not expect that in 2023, being practically retired, tons of young people would line up in front of his store.
The image of customers queuing on the narrow sidewalk of Fernández de los Ríos street, however, is not unprecedented. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Antonio placed signs on the door of his store announcing that he was selling all the material he had for retirement. Already at that time, and despite the restrictions, many came to the store in search of cameras, lenses and all kinds of chemical photography devices.
The truth is that Antonio “has been retiring” for quite a few years. In the meeting that this journalist had with him a few months ago he explained that he was practically retired. But he continues to go to his store almost every day and little by little he sells his stock. Although in reality, selling is not his main interest. One of the keys to the success of this mechanic, who knows how to repair film and digital cameras, is his friendly nature. What he likes most is chatting with his clients, especially with the boys and girls. Teach them, advise them, explain stories to them. Antonio is very talkative, and does not hesitate to provide selfless advice to anyone who asks for it.
At the time of visiting their premises, it was already possible to see that a large part of the public that comes to their store is very young. We were surprised to see how people who didn't even know how to name the most basic parts of the old cameras they had at home approached his store. Many asked for reels, but Antonio does not sell them.
This viral success tells us about how chemical photography attracts more and more young people. But also why electronics franchises are in decline, in which salespeople are more interested in selling us things we don't need than advising us on what we are looking for.
This viral phenomenon also has another tremendously interesting derivative, related to the power of social networks, and especially TikTok, to create trends in the real world. And the threats that this entails. The newspaper El País recently published a report on the collapse faced by small businesses that experience sudden success thanks to the viralization capacity of this platform. What in principle is a blessing sometimes turns into a nightmare, because many of these humble establishments are not prepared to receive an avalanche of customers from one day to the next.
Antonio del Solar is doing well at almost 80 years old because his store exudes a love for photography. In fact, it can almost be considered a museum of the history of photographic technology. Now we just have to hope that this sudden fame does not cause Antonio to end up exhausted, close down once and for all, and dedicate himself exclusively to his great passion: astrophotography.
