This Wynwood Lab Is Reintroducing South Florida To The Art Of Film Developing

You’re flipping through pictures on your camera roll and you wonder why they don’t look as cool as the ones in your grandparent’s photo album.

That’s because their photos were shot using film and yours weren’t. 

Film development is a lost art. Nowadays, we forget how amazing it is to develop an image because we can just whip out our phones and snap a shot.

However, Bellows Film Lab—located at 2051 N.W. 2nd Ave. in Wynwood—wants to help South Floridians rediscover the lost craft of film photography. It has been open for less than three months but develops 400 rolls of film a week. 

Marcello Peschiera, the shop’s owner, came up with the idea of opening a film lab while recovering from an accident he had on his Ducati motorcycle. It now hangs inside of the lab. 

“What I wanted to really do was kind of separate [Bellows] from every other film lab,” Peschiera said. “All the film labs that I used to go to, they felt like pharmacies. You walk in, you drop it off, you leave and there’s no social interaction.”

From the moment you walk into Bellows Film Lab, you know you are in for an experience. You’re greeted by a bright purple exterior and a melting smiley face near the door. The entire shop is decorated in bright colors.

They sell film out of repurposed soda coolers, Polaroid cameras in a lime green vending machine, colorful hoodies with Bellows embroidered on the chest and feature a display case full of cameras (they are not for sale). 

Peschiera, 23, also has a personal story connected to the store’s name. 

“My younger brother couldn’t pronounce Marcello, so he would always call me Bellow and it kind of stuck,” Peschiera said. “It’s also the relation to photography and large format cameras or really any camera. They sell an adapter that goes between the lens and the camera, it’s for focusing and it’s called a bellow. Lastly, when I started production I was into horror and bellow in the dictionary means pitched scream or really low roar.”

When you walk up to the film bar (no alcohol) inside the lab, you’re given a form to check off what services you want and an inventory of what you are submitting and how fast you want the turnaround time to be (one hour $5 per roll, 24 hours, or 72 hours $2 off per roll). 

To see their full price list click here.

You also get to pick how you want the pictures delivered to you: via dropbox, we-transfer or on a thumb drive. You can also choose what kind of scanner you want them to use: Epson v850, Fuji sp-3000, or Noritsu HS 1800.  

They currently develop 35mm, 120 film, 220 film, 4×5 and 8×10. 

To develop the film, they use a Noritsu QSF-V50 Film processor. The film is fed into the machine and within minutes your film is processed and dried, ready to be scanned. 

Currently, the film lab can’t scan Super 8mm film, but a scanner is being made—in Thailand—to change that.

“Once it is shipped here we will be able to do [Super 8mm film] within one or two hours,” Peschiera said. 

Bellows Film Lab is open Monday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The store offers a 20 percent discount to students.