Paxtons Celebrating 100 years in business!

When E J Paxton (I) an optometrist opened his optometric business in 1908, little did he know that his son (also an optometrist), grandson (the current John Paxton) and great grandsons would carry on the family business now in its 100th year.

Originally operating as E.J. Paxton Opticians in King Street Sydney the flourishing business purchased a number of City buildings in increasingly important locations and in the 1950's purchased a building in George Street Sydney near Wynyard. The optometric firm was one of the largest in Australia employing approximately 10 optometrists and over 50 staff in the Paxtons Optical Lens Grinding Factory.

In 1957 the firm diversified to include a new exciting Photographic Store right opposite Wynyard Station. The current John
Paxton (III) joined the firm in 1965 assisting his father John (II) in running the business. Unfortunately John's father died in 1972 at age 62 and the young John Paxton took over the reins of the business at the young age of 23. Since those early days John has expanded the business with his wife Marcia to include their Flagship City Store (300 sq meters) as well as suburban stores at Westfield Bondi Junction, Chatswood, Hornsby & Parramatta and AMP centres at North Ryde and Brookvale.

Paxtons stores have a full range of Digital Compact, DSLR and Video cameras as well as a substantial range of accessories and Digital Photo Frames. Paxtons also have in-house Kodak Express Digital Mini Labs in all stores, as well as HP Photo Centres in a number of their stores. They also offer Transfer to DVD, Canvas Printing, Camera Repairs and a range of other services.

Paxtons continues to be successful in the market place always looking for new opportunities joining Camera House as an Alliance member in 2006.

Paxtons run Digital Camera Courses, Video Camera Courses and walking photographic tours and also provide one on one camera training.

Currently Paxtons employees over 80 sales and office staff with many of our staff being with us over for 10 years. Ron Boyce worked for Paxtons for over 40 years originally as The Manager of the Hornsby store and then as General Manager for many years and was a fantastic asset to Paxtons. Ron has since retired and remains active as a member of the volunteer fire brigade amongst other interest.

John Paxton (III) has been in the Photographic Industry for more than 48 years. Starting in the business while he was still at school doing deliveries around town for his father in long socks and his school uniform.

John has been Territorial Vice President of PMA Australia three times, has been secretary of PMA Australia for many years and also a Director of PMA USA.

John has also been awarded the converted Golden Tripod award for his many years of services to the photo industry, Awarded the PMA Distinguished Service Award and Paxtons awarded PICA Photo Dealer of the Year Award for 2008.. John is still passionate about the business and says "I couldn't have done it without the support of all our loyal customers over the past 100 years which I would like to thank. The industry continues to change with a number of competitor stores which have closed in the past few years. Times may have changed but the basic philosophy of serving the needs of photographers hasn't. At Paxton's we believe in catering to the long term needs of customers. We're not out to just sell someone a camera and forget about them if they run into problems. Our interest is to provide the right kind of camera gear and then help the user get the most out of it. John's motto is "Enjoy your photography"