One Vision takes over Leach photo lab

One Vision Imaging, the Midlands leading professional photographic laboratory, has just announced its latest acquisition, the Photography division of the highly acclaimed Leach Colour Laboratory.

OVI’s Sales and Marketing Manager Derek Poulston said: “We are totally committed to offering professionals the best photographic service to be found in the UK. In order to achieve this we have to view the market from every angle, viewing consumer trends, photographer styles, and fashionable finished products. This includes keeping a close eye on the competition and accepting that they too strive for innovation and excellence in new products. We have always recognised and respected Leach Colour as one of these companies offering their customers quality and innovation in droves, so when the opportunity arose for a potential deal we grabbed it with both hands.”

This move comes just three years since Multiprint bought Colab and then became One Vision Imaging in April of last year. One Vision has reported impressive growth since the acquisition and this latest purchase is set to raise the bar once again in their quest for excellence.

Richard Leach, Managing Director of Leach colour added, “The background to this decision is concern that our range of professional lab services and technical back-up would become increasingly compromised in 2009 and beyond, as we focus on our growing display graphics business. The display graphics market has been, for several years, the key area of strategic development for the company, and the scale of this operation now significantly outweighs the laboratory business.

“With a long history as a social laboratory, we believe that it is the right decision to withdraw from the market now, before such compromises in our service becomes apparent. In doing so we are very pleased to have transferred the photographic production to One Vision Imaging.

“One Vision have a greater range of professional services than us, they offer very strong technical support, they use all the same ordering systems as Leach (ROES, FTP) and in many cases can offer more competitive pricing. One Vision also uses the same Fuji Professional materials as Leach and will be amalgamating our full range of finished products into their range with immediate effect.”

Leach Colour became part of the One Vision Imaging on Friday 9th January.

Editor’s note: A H Leach & Co was one of the oldest photographic laboratories in Britain, operating until recently from the original purpose-built Victorian premises in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. The daylight studios and retouching rooms survived until the move to new modern premises. Leach had a reputation for hand printing, and for hand-colouring black and white work before colour photography arrived. The famous story of the Cottingley Fairies – images of ‘fairies’ which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed to be real – belongs to this period, intended as a harmless hoax by two young girls who worked as artists for Leach. The end of wet-chemical processing by Leach, and handing over this side of the business to One Vision, is a marker point in the history of photography in the UK.