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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series of stories spotlighting local photographers and photo businesses as we head into their busy season of proms, graduations and weddings.
MANSFIELD — For more than 50 years Marco Photo Service has been providing photo services in Richland County. The company hopes its pictures will be around 50 years from today, too.
Marco Photo Service was founded in Mansfield in 1965 by Mario and Marie LaYacona, a family business built from the ground. These days the company is still family-owned, now jointly owned by their son Mark LaYacona, Chairman of the Board, and Rick Casey, President. Marco Photo Service has been at their 1655 Nussbaum Parkway facility since the late 1980s.
Through a new customer retail website, Dandelion Prints, the company hopes to provide high-quality photo prints for customers to enjoy throughout generations.
“One of our things is preserving memories and preserving them correctly, and not have them on some media that’s going to be obsolete 10 years from now,” said Rick Casey. “A print will always be viewed, and a good print on quality paper tells more of a story.”
Through Dandelion Prints, customers can create an account and order printed pictures as well as creative products. Holly Robertson, sales and marketing manager, explained that Marco’s prints are a cut above the rest because of the quality photo paper used.
“The memories you are printing are going to stay nice, and you’re going to be able to preserve that memory for as long as you want to,” Robertson said. “When you print from other retail sites online, 50 years from now it’s going to be yellow and falling apart, where our prints are going to last hundreds of years.”
Dandelion Prints is just one way Marco Photo Service has expanded in the last decade. For many years, the business was predominantly a photo finishing lab for customers all over the country specializing in school photography. About 11 years ago, Rick and his wife Nichole Casey decided to start taking pictures themselves.
“Because we service high-volume school photographers all over the country, we wanted to be able to put ourselves in their shoes and get out there and do it so we can understand the challenges they go through and come up with solutions for problems they may be having in the field,” said Nichole Casey. “It was an eye-opener for us because we can empathize with them more or less, because it can be tough.
“It sounds like it’s easy to set up a mobile studio and photograph the kids, but it can be challenging.”
Out in the field, Marco Photo Service photographs underclassman school photography, high school sports, personality portraits in the elementary school, and high-key photography on a white background. High school photography also includes candids for the yearbook, as well as prom and homecoming dances.
The goal, Nichole said, is to get in and out of a school for portrait photography before “recess hair and spaghetti shirts” at lunchtime. Elementary photography is certainly the most entertaining part of the job, Robertson said.
“Kids are cute and funny, it’s nice to be around them and refreshing to be around their point of view of life, they’re just so carefree,” Robertson said. “We come with a lot of different ways to get these kids to smile a real smile.
“One little boy was copying everything we’d do to a tee, down to our stances kneeling down to talk to him,” she said with a laugh. “We had to get really creative with that one.”
Rick Casey said the photography and retail side of the company interests him the most, because the possibilities for growth are infinite. In fact, Marco Photo Service is working on renovating approximately 5,000 square feet of its property to create an on-site studio for family and senior photography.
“We’re very excited about the opportunities for growth in and around the community here,” Rick Casey said. “We’ve added two jobs in the retail division within the last year.”
Currently, Marco Photo Service has approximately 50 full-time employees, increasing to around 110 employees in the busy spring and fall seasons. For both Rick and Nichole Casey, creating jobs and giving back to the community is the most rewarding part of the business.
“Having a company in this community where people can come and have jobs and support families, it really is important to me,” Rick Casey said. “Young people can stay here and start a career and start a family and know that there are solid businesses here. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.”
Marco Photo Service was founded in 1965 and now serves individual families and high school seniors with a variety of portrait photography options.
Marco Photo is located at 1655 Nussbaum Pkwy., in Ontario, and can be reached at 419-529-9010. http://www.marcophotoservice.com/
“It sounds like it’s easy to set up a mobile studio and photograph the kids, but it can be challenging,” said Nichole Casey.
