McGuire Studios started officially in 1965 in Lopez in a building on Main Street. It was located about 100 feet or so to the right of the building on the right edge of the above photo. I believe that was McCarthy’s store at this time, and would later be enlarged and become McGee’s hotel. My first actual paid wedding was in 1959 while still in high school, and have been shooting all sorts of subjects ever since.
First, I better explain the above photo. This originally is a circa 1904 old 5 x 8 inch black and white photo owned by Doc Shoemaker in Dushore. He had it copied and a roughly 3 feet by 4 feet enlargement made and had it hung on one side of the Sullivan Review van in our 1976 Lopez Centennial Parade. It then waited around the Sully for a year when I purchased it from Doc. It sat at my house for a year or so until I got up enough nerve to start painting it. I thought it would be really great to see a colored photo of 1904 Lopez. Well, after many boxes of Q-tips, tooth picks, cotton balls and more than 228 hours of oil painting, I just got burned out and it sat for 23 or so years. Now it is out of moth balls, and here you see it. It is also on display in the current new studio building in Lopez. I still have some work to do on it, but have to get up more nerve. It is a very tiring and tedious type of process and you have to be in the mood.
As I mentioned above, I started McGuire Studios in 1965 in a building that once was owned by William and Becky Johnson. William had a barbershop there and also took photos of Lopez and had them made into post cards. Becky sold them and candy and other little items there in the front room of the building. When I bought the building, I had the front room as a hobby and gift shop and sold cameras, film, photo equipment and other gift and souvenir type items. I had a studio in the back room and one on the second floor. Because business could not support large quantity purchases of film and other merchandise, I got rid of the store type sales and enlarged the front room and used it for a studio. That made the upstairs studio used less and less. I then built a quarter mile scale slot car drag strip up there and many local youngsters enjoyed a lot of hours of fun building and racing their cars against each other and the clock. I wish I had taken some photos of the strip and some of the action as all was destroyed in the 1982 fire.
More to come later:
Also in the news:
Photography Studio Returns To Lopez 25 Years Later
By Mark Roinick
Robert “Bob” McGuire is once again operating his photography studio in Lopez. He has been organizing the office and studio for the past year and a half.
For those who remember the great Lopez fire that ravaged the downtown district in 1982, one of the many businesses lost in the blaze was McGuire’s Studio. He relocated above The Sullivan Review Print Shop in the Tubach building at Dushore until 2006 and 2007 when he phased back into Lopez.
His new location is in a building next to his residence on Church Street. McGuire offers a wide range of photography services, from weddings and high school senior portraits, microphotographs to astrophotography, to births and even funerals.
“There’s not much we haven’t done,” commented Bob. “We’ve also done aerial photography.”
McGuire shot his first wedding in 1959 and officially opened a studio in 1965. He’s basically self-taught by doing and books but also received on the job training taking photographs in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
Bob has traveled for field work, anywhere up to a 300 mile radius. He now offers digital photography and will be setting up a real, more familiar wet dark room at Lopez.
Bob and his wife, JoAnn are the parents of two sons, Robert, Jr. and Brian. Robert, Jr. has one son, Tyler.
For more information about McGuire Studios, contact Bob McGuire at (570) 928-9238 or email uvbob1942@gmail.com.
Bob McGuire stands by his collection of miniature spy cameras at his office on Church Street in Lopez
photos by Mark Roinick