Capture On the Plaza

I visited Capture on a June Saturday and was pleased with the total experience. More a fan of painting than photography, I was not expecting to find so much art that really appealed to me. The owner and a key gallery employee are professional photographers and extremely knowledgeable about technique and print editions.
The gallery also has sculpture, Thomas Barbey black and white surrealist photography, Christopher Burkett color photography and a number of other well known artists.
It is fun to shop there. There are a lot of different prices and sizes, so it is easy to find nice art to take home.

This weekend I decided to take a walk with my beau into the downtown plaza area — a place I usually avoid at all costs on the weekends. I thought it would be fun to check out the shops and show him around for a change of pace.
We ended up in Capture because we passed by and were struck by the beautiful picture displayed outside. We couldn’t resist — we just had to go in! The photographs inside were phenomenal. Why, then, you ask, are you giving Capture only 1 star?
For the simple fact that we were ignored by both staff members. We were in there for at least twenty minutes and watched them help people that came in before us (understandably so) and then proceeded to watch them help everyone that walked in after us. And the staff members were actively approaching each customer and clearly ignoring us (their gallery isn’t terribly large). I’m sure they assumed that because we were young and wearing casual clothes, we couldn’t afford what they had to offer and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. How terribly disappointing, especially considering what nice pictures we saw.
Did I mention that one of the people that ignored us was a man claiming to be the owner?
A word to the wise: be attentive to your customers despite your prejudices. Healdsburg is definitely a town where there are a lot of people with a lot of money, but just don’t dress like it. It would behoove business owners to try and court the locals, too.