The Furneys........

Allan Furney has been taking photos for over forty years.  As a teenager his parents have him a Kodak 35-millimeter camera with a motor wind, and soon he was taking hundreds of pictures of family vacation trips, relatives' weddings, etc.  Those early slides of people and events now long gone are still among his most prized.  Allan knew early on that he would probably go through life with a camera in his hand or close by, but for the choice of a career he decided to go into education.  After graduating with a teaching degree from the University of Iowa, he and his new wife, Merna, moved to Knoxville where he became an English instructor for the high school.  He contributed to the education of thousands of Knoxville students over a period of twenty-seven years.

Concurrent with his teaching career, and beginning in 1972, the Furneys were photographing weddings for people in the local community. That sideline grew steadily over the years, and eventually the day came when Allan and Merna had to decide which career to put all of their energies into. In 1988 Knoxville no longer had any professional studios, so the decision was made to purchase some very expensive equipment and go into portrait-style photography, or to at least test the market for this kind of work. Merna, who had previously had a lot of "people" experience working for the school, the bank, and the city library, was now the organizing force behind this fledgling business. She did everything in the way of customer relations, and she was the photography assistant during the photo shoots. Together they did a good job of taking care of the clients that came their way. Unfortunately, they were having to work out of the living room of their home, and Allan was still teaching.

A defining moment came when they decided that they had to commit to this new occupation and build a studio building on their acreage. Bolstered by their past success, and with a strong faith in the future, a new 32' by 52' building was erected. It took the form of a turn-of-the-century railroad station. The large rectangular building with 12-foot ceilings allowed the maximum use of space on the inside while being very attractive from the outside. The new studio was a hit with customers from the start, and business has grown ever since. They have one daughter, Lisa, who is a sign-language interpreter working with deaf students at the DMACC campus in Ankeny.