If you stand on the sidewalk and cup your hands up to the window of Ed Woehl’s Photo Supply store, at 1800 N. Honore, it’s possible, with some concentration, to sort out recognizable objects from the stacks and piles crammed inside: metal lunch boxes, wire-screen flyswatters, camping gear, fishing rods, kitschy signs, clothes, fans, curtains, clocks. Close to 20 walking canes hang on a rope suspended from the ceiling. And there’s the album cover with John Lennon and Yoko Ono staring lovingly into each other’s eyes stashed carelessly in between roller skates, a wooden goose, a plastic turtle, and a thing that looks like a faucet.
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Though few of these treasures seem related to photo equipment, flashing signs above the windows and doors promise “Press, Movie View and Still Cameras,” “Used Cameras, 8 mm projectors, $15 and up.” Stashed among Ed Woehl’s other collectibles are tripods, lenses, editors, plus hundreds of photographs, most taken with Woehl’s handmade wide-angle cameras, stuck in books, boxes, and files. The photos are long, skinny panoramas that bring back buildings long ago torn down and people Woehl used to know from Maxwell Street, some of whom, he’ll tell you, are dead or in jail for shooting landlords. He takes a lot of photos with a 1940 Mercury camera he restored, and it’s not one he’ll sell. But he says he’s sold most of the wide-angle cameras he’s hand-built in the last 20 years, to photo students, professional photographers, and collectors who’ve heard about him through word of mouth.
Ed Woehl is a stout man, with large ears and ruddy round cheeks. He wears heavy work pants of the Sanforized variety, Sanforized shirts, wide suspenders, and work boots, and he keeps his cap pushed back from his forehead so thin tufts of straight white hair fall out around the edges. His motto is, “If I want something, I’ll make it if I can.” He’s made several jackets for Princess to wear in the winter. He’s decorated them with patches featuring slogans characteristic of his quirky sense of humor: “Ex Lax,” “Try it, you’ll like it,” “I’m a little stinker.” He makes plastic name tags and plastic key chains. He’s rigged up his cane with a flashlight that points down at the sidewalk for when he walks Princess after dark. Because he’s hard of hearing he’s also rigged up the shop door with a mechanical device that trips off a recording of Christmas carols when the door opens.
Woehl’s is open 11 to 6:30 Monday through Saturday (except for Wednesday, when it’s closed), and 11 to 2 Sunday. The number is 276-2280.
