Jessi Bowman still has the light-pink Barbie camera she was given as a gift when she was six years old. Today, the treasured ‘90s collectible, which uses hard-to-find 110 film, sits on a special shelf in Texas-born Bowman’s apartment, sandwiched between a 1980s Polaroid camera that was formerly used for taking passport photos and a 1960s Super 8 film camera that’s no longer in working condition. It should come as a surprise to no one that someone with such a collection of film ephemera is in the photography business.
Now, many years after her cherished Barbie camera turned from plaything to display object, Bowman runs Flats, a budding Houston business dedicated to all things photography. Started in 2016 as a nomadic photography exhibition series, Flats has evolved into a photo lab that also offers photo-developing services. Sponsored by Fresh Arts and funded in part…