American visual artist, film director, producer and cult figure in the pop art movement Andy Warhol once said the best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.
If you walk into a house in Fiji, I can almost guarantee that you will find a framed photograph, or a treasured memory in a photo-album, taken in a photo studio.
Yes, the ones with the floral or tropical backdrop that fall just shy of the subjects’ ankles with them sitting on a bench or standing.
If you are a child of the ’90s, and maybe the early 2000s, you have probably had one – or quite a few – taken while walking through town with your friends after school on a Friday afternoon.
And then it is printed out on actual photo paper that you can put in an actual photo album or have it framed.
Photos capture a memory – a moment – for you to keep forever, however long that may be.
We often confuse the terms ‘picture’ and ‘photo.’
The former is a representation of a person, an object, or a scene on a flat surface, while the latter is a representation of the same on paper.
Call me a romantic, but looking at a picture on your computer or mobile phone screen cannot compare with holding a photograph in your hand.
In 1902, Suva City was a bustling capital, after all the administrative infrastructure and personnel had been moved from Levuka 25 years earlier in 1877.
On what is now Victoria Pde, a Frenchman by the name of Le Faivre established the Le Faivre Photographic Studio.
In 1904 Frederick William Caine took over the shop and renamed it Caine’s Studios.
And for the past 121 years, the firm has operated as a photo studio providing professional photography and framing services – arguably the only part of its operations that has remained constant.
The business is Suva’s longest running retailer and is responsible for some of the most iconic Fiji postcards, photographs depicting life during the colonial days, and people of the era that was.
It was a one man show under Mr Caine and the original studio was in a building where the Victoria Arcade stands today.
Sometime later, a Mr N A Khan joined Caine’s Studio as a manager and in the mid 1920s he brought his two nephews, Hannif Akbar and Ben Mohammed Jannif, to work in the studio.
The two brothers started from the bottom – sweeping the floors, cleaning the windows, and doing all other small jobs around the studio.
Mr Khan eventually left to start his own business.
The brothers stayed and through hard work, they became partners in the firm.
Mr Caine stayed at the helm of the business until illness forced him into retirement in 1935.
Caine’s Studio was led by his wife and two brothers.
In 1953, Mr Jannif become the sole proprietor of the business after buying up Mr and Mrs Caine’s and his brothers’ shares.
Operations moved to the Dahia building opposite the Suva Carnegie Library, further along Victoria Pde.
While there was some discussion on changing the name of the company, Mr Jannif recognised the opportunity afforded to him by his previous employer.
He retained the name Caines and added his own at the end.
And thus the company we all know today, as Caines Jannif got its name.
In 1955 Mr Jannif purchased the Tolo Building on the corner of Pratt St and Renwick Rd – for 48,000 pounds – and the studio moved to its current location at the heart of Suva.
By now, Caines Jannif had diversified from a simple photo studio and went into retail.
They shared the Kodak dealership with Prouds, then owned by Stinson Pearce, through a jointly owned distribution company.
They were also dealers of Minolta, Konica, and Praktica cameras in Fiji.
Mr Jannif was born in Suva and educated at Marist Convent School, Levuka.
He was not just a businessman.
He sat on the Unit Trust of Fiji board and was a director of the Central Manufacturing Company Ltd.
He held many public offices associated with transport, mining, and police activities.
Mr Jannif was the first Indofijian president of the Suva Chamber of Commerce, and in 1952 was nominated to the Legislative Council, where he served for three years.
He served as Chief Scout Commissioner for six years and won the Marlow Trophy for the most outstanding scout in Fiji for six consecutive years.
Mr Jannif was made a Member of the British Empire in 1958, and only a few months before his passing in March 1985, aged 76, Officer of the British Empire.
He lived at a time when the print media and photography were the norm.
Technology was changing and improving, and the company navigated the transformation through those exciting times to stay on top.
In the 1979, Caines Jannif opened its first photofast lab in Suva, with the Nadi lab opening in 1981, Lautoka in 1982, and Labasa, Ba and Sigatoka in 1984.
In 1984, they also bought the Kodak dealership outright from Stinson Pearce.
Mr Jannif made other investments and turned Caines Jannif into a group of companies.
While most of us will be familiar with the photo studio, photography and framing services, preserving a record of Fiji history in visual form is another service Caines Jannif has offered, since it first began recording it in 1902.
It once held an unrivalled photographic record captured on glass, comparable only to – if not better than – the collections held by The Fiji Times and the National Archives.
Most of these were destroyed by a cyclone in 1952, and the 1953 earthquake destroyed about 2500 glass negatives.
280 negatives survived and were presented to the National Archives by Mr Jannif.
Chances are, if you have done a search on the old Fiji, you have seen some of those photographs.
In the Caines Jannif offices in Suva, there survive are some old pieces of furniture that were in the original studio in 1902.
A Caines Jannif photo can be identified by spotting these old tables, chairs, and benches.
Join us next week and we look at the life of Ikbal Jannif, the only son of Ben Jannif.
