“It would be scary to know how many times I punched the button and taken an image,” says Fairmont photographer Roger Carlson.

April 1 would have marked the 43rd year of businesses for R. Carlson Photography, but Carlson feels this is the right time for him to hang up his camera.

“It’s just harder to be in the photo business now than it used to be,” he said. “The digital revolution has changed a lot of things, including the photo business.”

People have the ability to take and print their own photos for a much lower cost than a professional photographer, Carlson said, but in doing so, they sacrifice quality in areas of posing, lighting and expressions.

“There’s a lot of full-time photographers that have gone out of business. I’m just glad I’m not 30 years old. It’s worked out nice for me because I’m right at that age where I don’t have to rely on it for a living,” he said.

At 62, Carlson will be far from idle. Closing his photography business simply will allow him more time for his five part-time jobs.

“Between them all, I keep pretty busy,” he said. “I’d go nuts if I was just sitting around. It’d drive me crazy.”

He serves on the Fairmont Fire Department, currently holding the job of treasurer. He does fire training at South Central Technical College in Mankato and for a private firm in Minnesota Lake. He fills in for staff at Lakeview Funeral Home as needed. He works at Kwik Trip. For almost 39 years, he has been a part-time officer with the Fairmont Police Department, a job he once considered as a career.

“Years back, I went through their testing process, just the written part, and I finished fairly high on the exam. I could have done the oral interviews, but at the time, I decided I would stick here. Looking back, if I’d done that, right now I’d be retired from the police department and getting a pension,” he said with a laugh.

Growing up on a farm near Armstrong, Carlson dabbled with photograph while in high school, working for the Armstrong Journal and the Estherville Daily News. He attended college for a year but was undecided about a course of study so he started driving school bus during the day and working the night shift at Art’s Way.

At that time, Carlson’s building at 31 Downtown Plaza was owned by Glen and Ruby Raymond, who had built the structure in the late 1950s to house their photography business, Glen Studio.

“I don’t really know the reason why, but my mom had stopped in at the studio and talked to Glen and Ruby,” Carlson said. “Somehow, they got into a discussion about wanting to retire. I ended up working with them for nine months, and then my parents helped me buy it. I took over April 1, 1973. I was 19 at the time.”

He had no idea he would remain in the business for more than four decades, saying that when you’re 19, you don’t think about such things, but his career had a life-changing impact on his personal life too.

“I kind of met my wife, Pam, because of the business,” he said.

In the fall of 1974, Carlson was taking photos at a cousin’s wedding in Manchester, Iowa, and stayed with a friend attending the University of Northern Iowa at Cedar Falls.

“He lined me up with a blind date, but the girl I was supposed to go out with – something came up, so they got Pam as a substitute blind date,” he said.

The couple dated for about 10 months, marrying in September 1975. Later this month, they will be going on a Caribbean cruise as a belated 40th anniversary celebration.

“I’m not going on any more blind dates; one time was enough,” Carlson joked.

The couple plan to do some additional traveling, visiting Texas and Missouri where two of their four children live. The other two remain in Minnesota, one in Fairmont and one in Nicollet.

When the weather finally warms up, Carlson will be busy in his garden, which he calls big for a town lot. He sows several different plantings so the harvest of the produce is staggered.

“A few years ago, my wife told me not to plant so much corn because it looked like we had a field in the back yard,” he said.

And Carlson would like to complete a solo motorcycle trip on his Harley.

“Last summer, I took off for Alaska and only made it half way,” he said. “My back went out on me the third morning out. It got to be too uncomfortable to keep going. I got to 200 miles northwest of Branff, Alberta.”

He chose to make the trip alone so, “I can do what I want to do when I want to do it and not have to worry about anyone else,” but says it would have been nice to have company in case something happened, like a breakdown. Cell phones provide a sense of security, but there are many areas with spotty reception.

To alleviate his wife’s worrying, he attaches a transmitter to his bike, and the signal it beams allows his wife to see his location. The transmitter also can be used to signal for help in case of an emergency.

But for the next several weeks, Carlson will be attempting to empty all the files, some back to 1960, even pre-dating him. Studio’s customers can purchase all the original proofs from their senior pictures, weddings and portraits. Anyone wishing to buy proofs can email Carlson at roger@rcarlsonphotography.com or call (507) 238-2038 and leave a message with the name and date of files needed.

“That’s all I’ve been doing the last few weeks – pulling files,” Carlson said. “The sad thing is, how do you reach everybody?”

A social media post on Facebook and advertisements have alerted many former customers, but it is impossible to contact everyone.

“I know I’ve done over a thousand weddings over the years,” he said. “There were several years where we’d do 50 weddings a year. I shot weddings of people that I had taken pictures at their parents’ wedding.

“Seniors? Probably 5,000. There were times when we did over 200 a year. It’s a lot different now than when I first took over. I could do four seniors an hour when I first started. Now the average is about three hours per senior. They average five or six clothing changes. I even had one girl with 13 different outfits.”

Carlson doesn’t have an exact closing date. He does have a buyer for the building, and the sale is pending. When he turns the key over to the new owner, he will leave with a lot of great memories.

“I met a lot of nice people over the years,” he said. “A lot of clients also became really good friends.”