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Developing Story: Calumet Announces Immediate Closing in the US

Chris Gampat
No Comments
03/13/2014
1 Min read

Last Updated on 03/13/2014 by Felix Esser

Screen Shot 2014-03-13 at 10.07.53 AM

Calumet, a company that has been a major retailing force in the photo industry for years, is today sadly announcing that they’re shutting down in the US. The company announced the closing on their Facebook page, but their website is down. Oddly their Youtube page is still up and their Twitter is down. Calumet along with B&H Photo, Adorama, and FotoCare were the big names in the industry for camera gear since Willoughby’s went from an entire city block to a city corner in size.

If you do a Google Search of Calumet closing down, you come across the company that shuttered lots of stores across the nation. The company has been around for 75 years but apparently can’t keep up with other retailers.

This is all incredibly odd as most stores often just say something along the lines of them having a going out of business sale and that everything must go. But this is sudden, and even the fans on Facebook are sharing both dismay and anger.

Even more interestingly is that their Wikipedia page has already been updated to say that they’re closing.

Edit: We contacted Peter Biosotti, who now runs Pro Gear Rental in Chicago and is the former President of Calumet. He declined to comment on the matter, though stated that there were hints of it coming for a while now.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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