Bye Bye Kodachrome
It is with a little sadness that I read the last rolls of Kodachrome are about to be developed. This story is both personal and strangely detached for me.
I never was one of those aspiring Speilbergs who produced motion picture length films in their backyard. I remember once at school we had a movie project – and my team never finished ours.
But … my father was a keen photographer and film maker. He shot many hours of film of us and the family in the late 50s and early 60s. He very tragically died when I was very young. And that film and photographs should be there for us.
But … it was almost all stolen in Rome in the 70s. For many years I neither sought nor missed it. Just recently, however, I have felt how lovely it would be to see him and the family on film. I think this sort of revisiting of family and origins happens naturally to us.
Still, we do just have the present. Sometimes strangely flavoured with the salt of old memories and passing icons.
Farewell Kodachrome.
Comments
A touching read Martin, and one to which many of us [certainly me] can relate I am sure.
Farewell indeed!… My father was a keen photographer and so was my grandfather. It’s through his legacy (amongst which several volumes of Amateur Photographer) that I discovered how he was first introduced to Kodachrome. I feel sad that we’ve come full circle, but also privileged to have witnessed both the beginning and the end… George
Yes, it all ends today. It truly is the end of an era in history and photography.
I exposed a couple of rolls myself over the last two months, to say farewell to this icon of photography, and of popular culture. And a couple of weeks back, I mailed my last two rolls of KR64 over to Dwaynes in Kansas for processing. I replied to an email yesterday asking for Paypal payment for this, so, they’ll be processed any time now, in one of the final batches I guess. I’m looking forward to getting the slides back in a week or two, and, if any of the shots work out, I’ll be uploading some onto Red Bubble early in the New Year. As far as I know, I’m the only member on RB to be using it up to the end-but I’d love to be proven wrong. I talk a little about this in a previous journal entry I made earlier this year. I hope you don’t mind me linking it in here, Martin, but it seems so on topic…
Thanks for remembering, and look out for a National Geographic article about it next year.
Cheers,
Brett
Oh, I am looking forward to seeing this art. Will just add you to my watchlist so I dont miss it. And absolutely add such links. They make the experience richer.
– Pilgrim
poignant commentary and sentiments……It struck a chord for me as well…… thanks Martin….
Oh my goodness, I am always kind of shocked when something is forever put behind me as a way of ’doing’things.
I think it is wonderful you have certain pauses in your life to reflect on, wishing for a view of your childhood once again through what was lost, seems natural and bitter sweet.
Personally I find your tell as to living in Rome as a child quite interesting and am all ears if you ever decide to journal on that time in your life.
2011… Oh wow. Have a wonderful evening Martin.
I was in Rome in 1972 with my mum, grandma and two brothers. We had been living in the UK (yes it was still pretty grim then) and were travelling around Europe in a funny old campervan – “not another church – MUM”. Our van was robbed outside the Vatican and a lot of personal stuff was sadly lost.
– Pilgrim
Kodachome, they gave us those nice bright colors, gave us the greens of summer, made us feel all the world’s a sunny day. sigh
Yes, those colors were just more real than real. Sort of like 3D but better.
– Pilgrim