For Wayne Riehl, owning his own camera store has been a tough slog, particularly after Wal-Mart and other box stores moved to town and started eating away his market.

But that's not why he's selling Photovision, which he's run for 31 years.

'It's just time to move on and let somebody else take over,' he explained in a recent interview.

Riehl says he is also reluctant to relearn a whole new camera business with the advent of digital photography.

'The photography that I knew was the one that I sorta fell in love with. The new digital stuff is great, it's super, but I still use a film camera. I'm stuck in the old world.'

Riehl, who has owned and operated a camera store since 1975, was the Woolworth's electronics manager when he moved to Whitehorse from Sudbury, Ont. in 1973.

He built that electronics department into the second-largest in Canada, next only to the electronics department in St. John's, Nfld., where sailors would stock up on music gear after a long haul at sea.

'We had the biggest camera department,' he says.

With that kind of success, it was only natural Riehl developed an idea to start his own store.

'I just seen an opportunity to be my own person and own my own business.'

Riehl started off as a franchisee for the now-defunct Kitz Camera chain that he estimated had 40 or 50 stores across Canada.

At the time, he had some strong competition in Whitehorse, including Woolworth's and Hougen's department store, but he was confident his business would survive.

'I thought I could do a better job, which I did. I'm still in business; they're not.'

After Kitz went belly-up, Riehl joined a buyers' group of other camera stores called Foto Source and changed his store to Photovision, which stands out on Main Street with� its log construction exterior.

But survive or not, the camera business is tough.

'It was always a hard tug doing business; your profit margins are very very slim. It's more competitive today than it's every been.'

Despite the challenge, Riehl says the last two or three years have been some of the best ever.

Besides competing with similar stores to himself, Riehl also has to contend with colossals like Wal-Mart.

'They do something like 800 billion-plus a year in sales. It's pretty hard to compete when you're doing what I do.'

Late in his business career, Riehl closed his Qwanlin Mall outlet and consolidated everything at the Main Street location.

Staples, Erik's Audiotronic, the Real Canadian Superstore and the entire world of online retailers are also taking some of Riehl's market share.

To make sure he's competitive, Riehl has kept tabs on a couple of stores in Toronto and Vancouver that are similar to Photovision, but he doesn't try to match everybody's prices.

'There's always somebody that's going to be selling it for less, but you gotta draw the line in the sand somewhere; you can't compete with everybody.'

Customer service is also a big part of his business strategy.

'You treat people the way you want to be treated and the way you want your family to be treated. It's not just that sale; it's next week and it's next year and everything else, so you always treat everyone fair.'

But you also have to be fair to yourself and your employees, says Riehl.

That means you can't sell items for nothing, and with camera prices constantly dropping, the amount of profit made per item is shrinking.

Riehl explains how a one-gigabyte media card used to cost $1,200. They now sell for $39.99. That means he has to sell 30 times as many to get the same amount of profit from the same mark-up. And people don't necessarily buy that many cards.

'You can only sell so much.'

And he's already sold enough, by his own estimation. Now it's time to get out and enjoy life, a lesson Riehl says he's learned from his daughter Paula, who drowned in the Yukon River in Riverdale 2 1/2 years ago. She had been in her early 20s.

'She got out and really enjoyed life and you know she's an amazing young girl. (I) miss her a lot but she taught me a lot too, by what she was doing and when she passed away too. She taught me a lot, and that was to enjoy life.'

After working constantly for 30 years, Riehl says it's time to switch gears.

'I don't have white hair for nothing.'

His retirement plans include travelling Canada and doing lots of fishing.