Photographer Klineberg hangs up the camera after 58 years

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Photographer Jerry Klineberg has recently put away his camera and closed his photography business — Klineberg Photography, Inc. — after 58 years.

The decision to retire was one that Klineberg, 83, started to seriously ponder three years ago.

“I thought about it for a while. As I turned 80, I said I’m maybe one of the oldest photographers in Syracuse. Maybe I shouldn’t still be doing this,” Klineberg says.

But the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on business and daily life is what really moved him.

“I think the pandemic forced me into understanding that the business wasn’t the same. I did a lot of events and they were cancelling them left and right. So, I was basically down to doing portraits,” Klineberg says.

Klineberg Photography operated at 2120 Teall Ave. in Syracuse. Klineberg sold the two-story, 7,144-square-foot building to 2120 Properties LLC for $194,000 in a transaction that closed on Jan. 28, according to Onondaga County’s online property records.

The heating and air-conditioning business, called 24Seven HVAC, is now located at 2120 Teall Ave.

Paul Myles, real-estate salesperson with JF Real Estate, sold the building for Klineberg. 

The photographer says he put the building up for sale in the first quarter of 2020, just before the pandemic hit or was just starting. 

“That’s when everybody started working from home. That’s when the business really started to take a nosedive. I still had people coming into the studio one at a time to do the portraits, but location work ended,” he says.

Klineberg adds that he separately sold all his photography equipment, including props and backgrounds. “We were very lucky to empty out the building. A lot of work went into it,” he says.

Klineberg’s career

Klineberg got into business in 1962, in partnership with William Bergan in a studio located in downtown Syracuse, across from the Dey Brothers department store It was known as Bergan Photography, but became Bergan & Klineberg, Inc. a year after that.

Klineberg, a 1960 Syracuse University graduate, started out mostly doing family portraits but quickly jumped into commercial work, shooting photos for advertising, agencies, department stores, and other businesses. Over the years, commercial work formed the bedrock of Klineberg’s business, particularly business events and business-leader portraits for public-relations purposes. He counted numerous area businesses among his clients, including The Central New York Business Journal and sister company, BizEventz.

In the 1970s, Bergan & Klineberg moved out of downtown Syracuse to the Teal Avenue building, which they rented until buying the property in about 1980.

In 1982, Klineberg bought out retiring partner Bergan and changed the name of the business to Klineberg Photography, which remained its name until the end.

Over the years, the veteran photographer saw a lot of changes in the photography business that made things both challenging and rewarding. The big change was obviously photography’s shift from film to digital. This led to a lot of do-it-yourself camera work by people who previously would have hired photographers to do it.

The changing landscape of business in Central New York was another challenge over the years a business closures and mergers and acquisitions affected some of Klineberg’s mainstay clients.

But his love for photography and working with clients carried Klineberg through all the way through the end of 2020.

What’s next for Klineberg? The DeWitt resident says he’s looking forward to traveling, especially as the pandemic eases.

“I’m looking forward to this summer. I got both of my vaccine shots; I’m ready to go,” he quips.