Topline:
Recently we found out LAist is full of film photography loving journalists. Here are several personal recommendations from our staff on where to go around Southern California for your film developing needs.
Why it matters: Finding the right film lab for yourself is an important part in film photography, according to Harvey Film Lab founder Kacie.
Read on:...to find your film photography home.
Before digital cameras and smartphones became ubiquitous it was film photography that reigned supreme. Back in the day that meant a trip to your local film processing store to get those negatives developed. Today a convenient alternative is the local CVS Photo Lab. They can get you scans and digital prints, but they no longer return your negatives.
So if you want those originals back, and for a chance to engage with your local photography scene – here are some independent film developing shops in L.A. and O.C. hand-picked by LAist’s photography-loving staff.
Powell Camera Shop
160 West Badillo Street
Covina, CA 91723
First up our General Assignment Reporter Destiny Torres frequents this San Gabriel Valley location.
What do they develop?
They take standard 35mm and medium format 120mm film and can use both C-41 and E-6 processing.
What’ll it cost me?
It varies depending on what you want back. Just developing the negatives will run you $9.99 before taxes. If you want color digital scans as well as prints: between $15 and 20 dollars. If you prefer black and white scans in addition to prints: between $22 and $32, according to Frankie Barron, a manager of Powell.
How long does it take to develop?
Your best bet is to go in person as Powell rarely accepts mail in negatives. It should take a week to get your photos back. The store doesn’t develop photos on site but sends them to professional developers at Swan Photo Labs in San Clemente.
Samy’s Camera
1759 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91106
If you’ve ever been interested in cameras and you’ve spent some time in Pasadena chances are you’ve heard of Samy’s Camera. This recommendation comes from AirTalk producer Lucy Copp.
What do they develop?
The shop takes various film formats including 35mm, medium format 120mm. They can also develop 4 by 5 and 8 by 10 large format or sheet film.
What’ll it cost me?
35mm film will cost you $6 a roll for color, $8 a roll for black and white. For color photo scans in 35mm and 120mm the cost is around $12 for low resolution, $18 for medium resolution, and $25 for high resolution. Adding prints? For 24 photos it'll be between $9.96 and $10.83. Thirty-six photos will cost you between $13.44 and $13.73.
How long does it take to develop?
Negatives will take two to five business days. Prints and scans will take about a week to 10 days. Samy's lets you drop off negatives in store at their locations in Santa Ana, Pasadena and Fairfax. Negatives are sent to their photo lab in the Fairfax area for development, according to Pasadena employee Dana Mooradian. All 35mm and 120mm color film development is done at the Fairfax location. Black and white and large format are sent to the Icon lab in Los Angeles for development.
Analog Photomart
416 E 2nd St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Our Major Gifts Officer Malka Fenyvesi also frequents Samy’s, but recently she’s noticed a new store in Little Tokyo.
What do they develop?
The store is about a year old, owner Bryan Hong says they’re able to take color, black and white, and slide film in both 35 mm and 120mm.
What’ll it cost me?
Getting negatives developed will cost you $9. Add scans and the price goes up to $15 for low resolution, $18 for medium, and higher resolution for $23. Black and white development will cost a buck more across the board. 35mm prints will be $12 a roll. 120mm will cost the same for developing and scanning, but getting prints will only cost you $6.
How long does it take to develop?
This small neighborhood shop only accepts in store drop offs. They don’t do any business online. To get the scans to your e-mail takes 3 to 4 business days. To get negatives back it takes about a week, and up to 10 days for prints.
Berry Flash Photo Lab
11445 Jefferson Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90230
AirTalk Senior Producer Lindsey Wright is also a Samy’s regular, but lately she’s been going to a spot on the Westside.
What do they develop?
Berry Flash has you covered when it comes to 35mm and 120 mm, in either color or black and white. Negatives-only for 110mm. For 35mm you can choose between two different film processes, E-6 or C-41.
What’ll it cost me?
Standard color C-41 35mm processing will cost you $9.99. 120mm processing will be $14.99. Scans plus negatives for 35mm is $19.99 for “social friendly scans.” They also offer higher resolutions at $24.99. 120mm starts at $24.99, and $29.99 for high res. According to Berry Flash lab technician Natalia Delgado, if you want prints too just tack on an extra $10.
How long does it take to develop?
If you drop off your film at the main lab location in Culver City typical turnaround time is 2 to 3 business days for color negatives. Up to 10 days for black and white. You can also mail in your photos to Berry Flash Photo Lab. Their P.O. Box for mailing in film is:
Berry Flash Photo Lab
3019 Ocean Park Blvd., #370
Santa Monica, CA 90405
Tuttle Cameras
5467 E. Carson St.
Long Beach, CA 90808
AirTalk associate producer Manny Valladares loves to hit up this Long Beach location for both film developing and film gear.
What do they develop?
Tuttle Cameras can handle 35mm, 120mm, and 110mm film. Store associate Julian Lee says they process color, black & white, and slide for all formats as well.
What’ll it cost me?
Developing your 35mm film will cost $8.25. Adding scans will be $18.50. Tuttle offers different size files. Scans larger than 12 mb will run about ten dollars more each. Prints will cost anywhere between $12 and $18 depending on the number of exposures you want.
How long does it take to develop?
To get your negative scans back it’ll take around 1 to 2 days on weekdays and 2 to 3 days on weekends. You can drop your film off or mail it directly to the store. Tuttle partners with local developer Fromex for film processing.
Bill’s Camera
6022 Warner Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Bill's an O.C. favorite that’s been around since 1971.
What do they develop?
According to lab manager Josh Ventura, Bill's can develop all color film in 35mm, 120mm and APS formats.
What’ll it cost me?
$6.50 for 35mm negatives and $7.50 for 120mm negatives. Add scans to those and it’ll be $13.95 for 35mm and $14.90 for 120mm. Including prints will cost you anywhere between an additional $13 and $16 depending on the roll and the format.
How long does it take to develop?
Ventura says the typical turnaround time for the negatives is 24 hours. 120mm will take two days. You are also able to mail your negatives into the shop. All color film development is done on site. Black and white film is sent to a third party.
The Frida Cinema/Harvey Film Lab
305 E 4th St #100
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Sticking with Orange County for our final recommendation. Why not see a movie as you drop off your negatives? The one-person development operation Harvey Film Lab has a drop box at Orange County’s only independent art house theater.
What do they develop?
Kacie from Harvey Film Lab says they can develop 35mm and 120mm film, in both color and black & white.
What’ll it cost me?
Basic scans for 35mm will start at $14.70, which includes getting your negatives back too. If you want prints it’ll be an additional $14.99.
How long does it take to develop?
Film is developed exclusively on site and takes one to 7 business days. You can mail your film to them directly, or purchase services online then head over to the Frida Cinema for drop off. For pick-up you can go in-person or have them mailed to you.
That’s it! Go forth and take your pictures! But remember to get your film developed as soon as possible for the best looking photos.
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Fees paid by airline passengers keep piling up, even as airport security officers work without pay.
Where things stand: TSA officers have been working without pay since funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 14th. They've already missed part of one paycheck, and many security officers received no money at all in their paychecks on Friday as the partial shutdown approached the one-month mark.
What travelers are seeing: Passengers have encountered hours-long security lines at major airports in Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, and elsewhere, as many TSA officers have called out sick. Some officers have taken on second jobs in order to make ends meet, Jones said.
What about those fees? Airline passengers are still paying the security fees that help to fund the TSA's budget, even as the partial shutdown drags on.
Millions of spring break travelers are heading to the airport this month, and Johnny Jones was hoping to be one of them. But the ongoing shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security forced his family to cancel its vacation plans.
"I won't be traveling anywhere, but I'll be helping out getting people to where they're going," said Jones, a TSA security officer at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. He also serves as the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 100, which represents about 45,000 TSA officers nationwide.
Those TSA officers have been working without pay since funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 14th. They've already missed part of one paycheck, and many security officers received no money at all in their paychecks on Friday as the partial shutdown approached the one-month mark.
"They're panicking, they're scared, they're afraid. And they don't know what they're going to do," Jones said in an interview. The majority of TSA employees work paycheck to paycheck, Jones said, and don't have enough savings to cover their expenses. "They're just flat-out not paying their bills because they don't have any money," he said.
Passengers have encountered hours-long security lines at major airports in Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, and elsewhere, as many TSA officers have called out sick. Some officers have taken on second jobs in order to make ends meet, Jones said.
"The officers can't afford to come to work. The gas is expensive right now," said Suzette, a security officer at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport who's worked for TSA for more than two decades. She requested we only use her middle name because she is not authorized to speak to the media.
"People have childcare. You have a mortgage that you have to pay," Suzette told NPR's Morning Edition. "Where are you getting the money from to pay?"
DHS has blamed the long lines on Democrats in a series of social media statements over the weekend, though Democrats say Republicans are also to blame.
Democrats have refused to approve DHS's budget unless GOP lawmakers and the White House agree on changes to how immigration officers operate after the fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis. Senate Democrats introduced bills to fund TSA and other components of DHS instead, but Republicans blocked them.
More than 100,000 DHS workers will miss their first full paycheck Friday, according to the White House, including employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the TSA.
Meanwhile, airline passengers are still paying the security fees that help to fund the TSA's budget, even as the partial shutdown drags on. The passenger fee, also known as the aviation security fee or the September 11 security fee, was enacted when the TSA was created after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
"That fee has underwritten part of the TSA budget for all those years," explains former TSA administrator John Pistole. Airlines collect $5.60 for each one-way segment on a domestic flight, Pistole says. And that money has continued to accrue, even though none of it is finding its way into the bank accounts of TSA workers.
Security officers also went more than 40 days without a paycheck last year during the partial government shutdown last year. The back-to-back shutdowns have only made it harder for the agency to attract and retain workers, Pistole said, as more than 1,000 security officers resigned from TSA during October and November of last year.
"The longer it went, the more officers who resigned," Pistole said. "Not knowing how long the shutdown will continue, [they] will basically look for other work, because surprise, they have bills to pay."
An additional 300 TSA officers have quit during the current shutdown, according to the White House.
Travel and aviation industry leaders say all of this is creating unnecessary stress and confusion for passengers.
"Travelers should be concerned that Congress has created unpredictability in the system. They've created a system where we don't know whether we should show up at the airport one hour ahead, four or 5 hours ahead," said Geoff Freeman, the CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Freeman had urged the Trump administration to restart Global Entry, a program that allows pre-approved, low-risk travelers to get expedited processing when they enter the U.S. from abroad. DHS moved to reopen the program this week.
Now Freeman is hopeful that a change in leadership at DHS will help to break the stalemate over funding for the department. Last week, President Trump announced that he is removing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and wants Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R.-Okla., to take over.
"The politics of the shutdown are complicated," Freeman said in an interview. "Changes at the Department of Homeland Security create additional opportunities for compromise," he said, though he expects the shutdown to continue into next week at a minimum.
NPR's Milton Guevara contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
President Donald Trump announced this afternoon on his Truth Social platform that Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, is leaving his position at the head of the Kennedy Center before it closes for scheduled renovations in July.
About the timing: Grenell's departure comes about three months before the Kennedy Center is set to close for renovations, which Trump has said would take two years.
What's next: Trump, who has been chairman of the Kennedy Center since Feb. 2025, said that he is promoting Matt Floca, the center's current vice president of operations, to chief operating officer and executive director.
President Donald Trump announced Friday afternoon on his Truth Social platform that Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, is leaving his position at the head of the Kennedy Center before it closes for scheduled renovations in July.
Trump, who has been chairman of the Kennedy Center since Feb. 2025, said that he is promoting Matt Floca, the center's current vice president of operations, to chief operating officer and executive director. Grenell's departure comes about three months before the Kennedy Center is set to close for renovations, which President Trump has said would take two years.
As NPR reported last month, the renovations as detailed in an internal memo include some facility repairs and cosmetic changes, including to public spaces that were just renovated two years ago. In his Truth Social posting Friday, the president repeated his claim that the renovations will be a "complete reconstruction" of the complex.
Grenell, who served as the center's president, has a reputation as a Trump loyalist and has frequently deplored what he has called "leftist activists" in the arts. During Grenell's tenure, which began as interim executive director in Feb. 2025, the Kennedy Center has experienced intense tumult. Numerous prominent artists have canceled their performances and presentations. One of the center's core tenants, the Washington National Opera, severed its relationship with the Kennedy Center last month. Many longtime staff members have departed. Ticket sales have plummeted.
Grenell, who had no prior arts administration experience prior to his Kennedy Center appointment, told PBS NewsHour in January, "We cannot have arts institutions that lose money." He insisted that productions at the Kennedy Center needed to be revenue generators or at least revenue-neutral — a non-starter in the performing arts, in which large legacy institutions generally depend on a balance of earned revenue, philanthropic giving and some amount of government grants.
Last November, Senate Democrats opened an investigation against Grenell, accusing him and the current Kennedy Center leadership of cronyism and corruption, citing "millions in lost revenue, luxury spending and preferential treatment for Trump allies." Grenell denied the allegations in an open letter posted to social media on the official Kennedy Center accounts, which has since been removed.
In his Truth Social post, President Trump praised Grenell, writing: "Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done."
News of his departure was first reported Friday by Axios.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Life expectancy in Los Angeles County is 80.5 years, according to the report by Measure of America, a program of the Social Science Research Council. That’s down 1.6 years from the group’s previous report, released in 2017.
The gap between the longest- and shortest-living communities is more than 16 years — 88.1 in Westwood, 71.8 in Sun Village in the Antelope Valley. Latinos saw the steepest decline in life expectancy of any major racial group, falling 3.7 years.
The bright side: No community fell into the report's lowest tier of well-being, an improvement from 2017, when six did. Educational attainment also rose significantly, with an 18% increase in bachelor's degrees.
What's next: The report's data end in 2023 — before the Palisades fire, ICE raids and major federal funding cuts. Researchers say those crises will likely worsen the picture. County health officials say they'll use the report to guide planning, programming and investment decisions.
How long a Los Angeles County resident lives can depend on where they live in the area, and the gap between the county’s richest and poorest communities has gotten wider over the past decade, according to a report released this week.
Average life expectancy countywide is 80.5 years, according to the report by Measure of America, a program of the Social Science Research Council. That’s down 1.6 years from the group’s previous report, released in 2017.
The Portrait of Los Angeles County measures how Angelenos are doing neighborhood by neighborhood, using a metric called the Human Development Index, or HDI. The index combines life expectancy, educational attainment and personal earnings into a single well-being score between 0 and 10.
The county’s HDI crept up to 5.64, from 5.43 in the previous report. That was far short of a county goal set in 2017 to raise L.A. County’s HDI by a full point.
“The main reason for this anemic progress is COVID and the disproportionate impacts it had on different groups of Angelenos,” said Kristen Lewis, director of Measure of America.
Drug overdoses and cardiovascular disease also contributed, the report says.
The report was produced in partnership with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health and supported by a group of philanthropic funders including the James Irvine Foundation, Cedars-Sinai and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
The report details disparities between L.A. County’s wealthiest communities — where life expectancy went up — and poorer ones, where it dropped.
“What we saw in terms of change over time is that the areas that were already doing well are doing better,” Lewis said.
The gap between the longest-living and shortest-living communities is more than 16 years. Average life expectancy in Westwood was 88.1, compared to 71.8 in the Antelope Valley community of Sun Village.
Lewis said she drove to Sun Village during the research process and found no grocery stores and no sidewalks.
"It would be very hard to make healthy choices in that environment,” she said.
While median personal earnings rose countywide since the last report, they didn’t keep pace with dramatically rising housing costs.
In every L.A. County neighborhood, a resident earning the local median salary would need to work more than 40 hours a week to afford median housing costs, according to the report. In 31 L.A. County neighborhoods, that figure exceeds 80 hours.
The report sorts L.A. County neighborhoods into five tiers of well-being, based on where they fall on the Human Development Index, from “precarious L.A.” to “glittering L.A.”
No community in the county scored below 3.0 on the HDI and landed in the lowest tier in the 2026 report. That’s an improvement from 2017, when six areas fell into that category, including Cudahy, Westmont and Southeast Los Angeles.
The latest report examined L.A. County death records between 2019 and 2023. The earlier report had looked at 2010 through 2014.
One bright spot, according to researchers, was that educational attainment improved significantly. The share of adults with a bachelor's degree rose by more than 18%.
Latinos saw the steepest decline in life expectancy of any major racial group, falling 3.7 years to 80.7 years of age.
The report attributes this largely to COVID-19, noting that Latino Angelenos are disproportionately concentrated in frontline jobs and are more likely to live in overcrowded, multigenerational households, both factors that increased exposure to the virus.
Asian Angelenos have the longest life expectancy, at 86.2 years. Black Angelenos live to 72.9, on average, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders to just 71.2.
Black mothers remain nearly four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white or Asian women.
Lewis said the disparities across neighborhoods are based on policy choices.
“There's nothing natural or inevitable about inequality,” Lewis said. “It was really decades of deliberate decisions, policies and investments designed to advantage some groups of Angelenos while excluding others that really created this landscape of inequality we see today.
Lewis said she hopes local officials and community organizations use the report to guide planning, programming and investment decisions.
After the first report in 2017, the city of Los Angeles relocated some workforce development sites based on neighborhood HDI scores, and the county Department of Mental Health used the findings for needs assessment, according to the report.
Kalene Gilbert, a coordinator at the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, said the department used the 2017 report to decide where to pilot community school programs, targeting areas with the worst education disparities.
“If we're really serious about equity in L.A. County, it's reports like this that really help make that a reality because this provides that understanding of where the need is at a really detailed level,” Gilbert said.
The report’s underlying data end in 2023, before several major crises hit L.A. County.
The January 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed thousands of homes and displaced tens of thousands of people.
Federal immigration enforcement raids that summer disrupted daily life in immigrant communities, leading the Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency in October.
The passage of the federal budget bill in July 2025 cut $750 million in annual funding for the county's public health system, according to the report.
None of that is reflected in the latest HDI scores.
Gilbert said those crises are already affecting the people DMH serves. She said immigration raids have made some clients afraid to leave their homes for appointments, forcing the department to shift toward telehealth.
“We consistently hear concern about just even coming out into the community,” Gilbert said.The report's interactive portal, where residents can explore data for their neighborhoods, is available at Measure of America's website.
Topline:
In the heart of L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood, a 6,000-square-foot space looks to provide mental health care services for Los Angeles Unified School District students, as well as for kids and young adults ages six to 25.
Why it matters: For years, mental health has been a top concern for L.A. youth, many of whom experience high-level stressors, including housing insecurity, gun violence and discrimination in and outside school. Last year, the L.A. County Youth Commission’s annual report revealed mental health was the top concern for youth, with education and employment falling close behind.
More details: With a new location for its Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program inside the Chinatown Service Center, the Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers hope to reach more children and youth who can benefit from therapy, medication management and psychiatric care.
Read on... for more on the ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this week.
In the heart of L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood, a 6,000-square-foot space looks to provide mental health care services for Los Angeles Unified School District students, as well as for kids and young adults ages six to 25.
For years, mental health has been a top concern for L.A. youth, many of whom experience high-level stressors, including housing insecurity, gun violence and discrimination in and outside school.
Last year, the L.A. County Youth Commission’s annual report revealed mental health was the top concern for youth, with education and employment falling close behind.
The commission surveyed 856 youth across the five different districts of the county, 524 of whom listed mental health as a top concern. The majority of the youth who selected mental health as their main concern were Latino and system-impacted.
Witnessing rising health care costs and deep cuts to mental health funding in California led Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers to expand their critical outpatient services for youth, also known as their Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program (GCAOP).
With a new location for its GCAOP inside the Chinatown Service Center, the Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers hope to reach more children and youth who can benefit from therapy, medication management and psychiatric care.
On Tuesday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the new location for the GCAOP in Chinatown. She began her remarks by thanking Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers “for stepping up,” with the new facility expected to serve more than 230 youth annually.
“This place will provide the healing needed to prevent challenges from escalating into crises,” Bass said. “Make no mistake, we have a long way to go, but my administration and leaders like those at Gateways are turning the tide on major challenges like mental health that have been ignored for decades.”
Last year, the U.S. Department of Education, under the Trump administration ,announced it would stop funding roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools. The department claimed that the grants were awarded under the Biden administration, a decision that was said to conflict with the current administration's priorities.
Aside from terminating the 2025 grants, the department also proposed an additional reduction for the 2026 fiscal year. These consecutive cuts would reduce resources for school counselors and psychiatrists, something that for school districts like LAUSD can be detrimental.
As L.A. Public Press reported earlier this year, LAUSD enrollment has dropped due to ICE raids spreading across L.A. County and many LAUSD staff, including counselors, have indicated that in times like these, the hiring of more trained attendance counselors and investing in mental health support are vital.
Despite that, for many LAUSD campuses, especially in low-income neighborhoods, staff shortages, including counselors and therapists, are a reality.
To combat some of the local shortages when it comes to mental health, the Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Centers are partnering with LAUSD to provide outpatient services to students, including individual and family therapy and psychiatric evaluations across more than 15 of the district's campuses.
“Our program is designed to meet young people where they are, whether that’s in school, at home, or here in the new Chinatown Service Center location,” said Charlotte Bautista, director of Gateways Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program. “We know early access to mental health care can change the trajectory of a child’s life, and we are providing a safe space where families can heal, grow and thrive together.”
Charlotte Bautista, director of Gateways Child and Adolescent Outpatient Program, said this expansion also allows for more students and families who deserve consistent, high-quality care to be reached, reducing waitlists and out-of-pocket costs.
“Our program is designed to meet young people where they are, whether that’s in school, at home, or here in the new Chinatown Service Center location,” she said. “We know early access to mental health care can change the trajectory of a child’s life, and we are providing a safe space where families can heal, grow and thrive together.”
This story was produced by CALÓ News, a news organization covering Latino/a/x communities.
