Picturing The Community

For 50 years, Gorback Studio of Photography has built
its reputation and evolved with technology.

A

SHARON LUCKERMAN

Staff Writer

V14

10/4

2002

38

photography business that started almost
by accident 50 years ago is still going
strong and still run by the same family.
Gorback Studio of Photography's first
location was in the basement of Jack and Esther
Gorback's Detroit home. Now, the business occupies
a quaint 1830s-era restored building in the village of
Franklin.
Les Gorback, 53, of West Bloomfield joined his
parents' business 30 years ago. He and his father
have photographed generations of local families as
well as many visiting celebrities, including attorney
Alan Dershowitz, the singing Dixie Chicks pictured
with Loretta Lynn, singer-actress Liza Minnelli and
former Detroit Piston John Salley.
"We're a full-service studio now," says Les, noting
that they take portraits, shoot events, frame pictures
and restore and copy old photographs.
Jewish Detroit author Irwin Cohen of Oak Park, a
wedding photographer himself, says the Gorbacks
are one of the oldest established photographers in
metro Detroit.

"They're artists," he says simply. "All admire their
work."

Novice To Expert

The photography business evolved serendipitously.
After 21-year-old Jack Gorback returned home
from World War II with a Purple Heart and no job,
he went to work at his father's newspaper, the
Northwest Record weekly in Detroit. Jack had never
used a camera before. Sam Nathanson, his father's
business partner, disturbed by the price of photo-
graphs — $2 a picture — told Gorback's father,
"Harry, tell Jakie to go out and buy .a camera and
use it."
Jack rose to the challenge and taught himself to
take and develop pictures. He worked six years for
the paper, snapping photos and doing layout and
circulation, before striking out as an independent
photographer in 1952.
The other important move Jack made when he
returned from the service was re-meetirig a "pretty
young woman" — Esther Avrushin of Detroit. They
met in 1943, working as counselors at a summer
camp. The couple married in 1947, a year after he

returned from the war.
The Gorbacks, members of Temple Israel, have
two more children besides Les. Their family includes
son Ben, 50, of Franklin, daughter Joy, 45, of San
Diego, and six grandchildren.
The photographers' studio is in a renovated 1830s
building that's been a saloon, slaughterhouse and
hardware store — a far cry from the business' origi-
nal location in the Gorback home. There, Esther
Gorback did the books, answered the phones and
solicited prospective clients from newspapers, temple
-bulletins and newspaper birth announcements.
"Esther's played the supporting role through my
whole life," says Jack, with his warm, gentle smile.
"She's the one who wanted us to take a chance and
move the business out of the house."
In 1963, the photography studio moved to what
was called "The Avenue of Fashion," the classy
Livernois and Outer Drive area of Detroit. Six years
later, the Gorbacks followed their clients and opened
a shop on Telegraph Road, then moved in 1976 to
the current Franklin address.
Meanwhile, Les started working with his father at
age 14, becoming "a very overqualified assistant," he
says. He earned a bachelor's degree in marketing at