Leigh has come a long way since its founding in 1945. Starting out with a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera, and eventually evolving with the times to digital equipment and the capability to offer many other services such as digital imaging, graphic design and finishing.

When Francis Leigh founded Leigh Photographs in 1945, 35 mm film had only been around for 10 years, and you only had two choices, Black & White or Black & White.

Francis Leigh took a liking to photography at an early age. As a high school sophomore, the young Mr. Leigh was already setting up a darkroom in the basement of the family home in Hamilton Township. His first commercial clients were local drug stores for whom he processed film.

After graduation from Hamilton High School, Mr. Leigh held a few odd jobs before entering the Navy during W.W.II. After serving in South America patrolling for submarines from a dirigible, he attended the Navy Photo School in Pensacola Florida. Upon his discharge, Leigh opened his first commercial space (outside the family homestead) on East State Street in Trenton in 1945, where he specialized in commercial, industrial and aerial photography. Using a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera, he shot assignments for such clients as The Saturday Evening Post, AT&T, Lenox China, Time Magazine and the list goes on. Finding that he required larger accommodations than were afforded by his address on East State, Mr. Leigh moved the business to Olden Ave in 1955.

Leigh Photographs went through a growth phase, investing in new medium format equipment, to supplement the 4x5 cameras that were currently in use. (It was about this time, early 1960's, that NASA was in the fledgling stages of developing digital imaging technology.) After spending ten years at Olden Avenue it was time for another move; this time to Parkway Ave in 1965.

Leigh Photographs was by now operating a full service lab, offering film processing as well as color and black and white printing. Our first E-6 film processor was installed at this location. Then as now, the E-6 is the gold standard for slide film processing. (Texas Instruments patented the first ‘filmless camera’ in 1972.)

1980 brought with it yet another move, this time to our current location here in Princeton Junction. One year later, Sony released an electronic still camera based on its video technology. While keeping an eye on industry trends, Mr. Leigh, along with his director of operations at the time Peter Dawson, made the commitment to digital imaging; purchasing a whopping 4 megapixel digital camera and computer as well as the software to run it.

With all these images being saved to CDs, we had to do something with them and in 1999 we launched leighimaging.com. Establishing our presence on the World Wide Web, it allows us an alternate means of communicating with the current and prospective clients. 1999 also brought with it a passing of the baton, but fortunately it did not go far. Mr. Leigh, wa ting to spend more time traveling, sold the business to his Director of Operations, Peter Dawson, who has held ownership since.

After over 65 years in business, Leigh continues to provide the highest quality photographic, imaging, digital output printing, and finishing services to companies and organizations in a wide range of fields including advertising, architectural, medicine, research, manufacturing, and financial services. 

In order to best serve our clients, we offer a partnership approach with our clients with emphasis on discovering, assessing, and solving problems with a firm grasp on the best solutions to fit within our clients' budgets and needs.

Please, take a minute to meet some of the dedicated employees at Leigh who are excited to work at 110% to meet and exceed our client’s highest expectations.