Farewell to Kodachrome
64 weeks shooting Kodachrome 64
When Kodak announced it was pulling the plug on Kodachrome in 2009 I stashed a few rolls away with the aim of publishing a photo-a-day to the photographic website Flickr for 64 weeks.
I ended up shooting through 50 rolls of film, the final one heading to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas, the last lab to process Kodachrome, at the end of 2010 when they pulled their line.
The first frame was uploaded to Flickr on 12 October 2009, though there was of course a four or five week delay between taking the picture and publication, as all film had to be sent to Kansas for processing, via Switzerland.
In total, I uploaded 448 frames from the series, some are literally grab shots, others just colourful scenes, or on occasion frames recorded in desperation as I searched for a subject for that day, but others are more considered.
Many are street shots as that’s where my heart lies, and though Kodachrome 64 is not really suited to this type of photography, especially on cold dark days in the UK, I wanted the film to become part of my everyday life and not solely used to record those bright colours it is so well known for.
There is no set theme to the pictures; they are of unspectacular moments, the strangeness of things overlooked.
The project is partly about taking pictures for their own sake, enjoying the moment, the click of the shutter and the challenge of finding the best vantage point, coupled with a limited supply of film.
Created in 1935, Kodachrome film was renowned for its exceptional rendering of colour, vivid images and archival longevity.
Kodachrome had a special place in the hearts of many photographers for nearly three-quarters of a century, but was at its peak of popularity during the 1950s and 60s, but by 2009 it accounted for less than 1% of Kodak’s sales of film.
For many years, it was the preferred brand for print media and also used for motion pictures.
As it drew towards the end of its 75 year lifespan at the tail end of 2010, Dwayne’s Photo was inundated with requests for developing, many from photographers who had been hoarding the coveted film for years.
One customer picked up 1,580 rolls of film used solely to shoot railroad engines. That is nearly 50,000 slides, which cost $15,798 (£10,200) to develop.
- Founder of Kodak George Eastman said that K was his favourite letter and that he had wanted to incorporate it into his company’s name. He said: “A trademark should be short. It must mean nothing.”
- Kodachrome was invented by professional musicians Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes, leading to comments that it was “made by God and Man”
- A 35mm Kodachrome transparency can record the equivalent of 20 megapixels in digital image terms.
With the rise of digital all but killing off the amateur slide market, Kodak stopped manufacturing the 25 and 200 ISO versions of the film a few years before it shut down the 64 ISO version. For me at least, there was something magical about popping the yellow and red roll into your camera. You felt a need to do it justice.
Indeed, anyone who has waited a few weeks for their holiday snaps to return in their little yellow box will know what I mean. Rows of card mounted transparencies holding the fruits of your labour — just glorious.
It is that separation between taking a picture and seeing the result that allows us to forget the moment, and then be surprised, or maybe disappointed, all over again.
When we hold the little image up to the light we look at the scene afresh.
My inspiration came from the many 365 projects on the web as well as the great William Eggleston’s Democratic Forest, where everything is worthy of a picture, mixed with a dash of nostalgia for colour slides.
I, like many who grew up in the 60s or 70s have a sentimental bond with the product as much of my childhood is preserved inside a few hundred cardboard frames.
To quote Don Draper from the sublime television series Mad Men: “Nostalgia, it’s delicate but potent… a twinge in your heart and far more powerful than memory alone.”
Compare that to the children of the 21st Century whose formative years will be a matter of public record, spread across the web in thousands of frames.
But looking back, I hope my little project was a fitting tribute to a wonderful film and an era of photography that has now passed.
Of course I wasn’t the only one doing this, a certain Mr Steve McCurry hit all the headlines with his project to shoot the last roll of Kodachrome for National Geographic, revisiting the sites of his most famous pictures.
And 64x64 was also featured at the Celebration of Kodachrome show at the Association of Photographers Gallery in London, alongside work by many other photographers.
I also self published the work in book form on Blurb, where it is available in both printed and eBook form. It includes an essay on Kodachrome by Rolf Fricke, retired Director of Communications at Kodak.
Kodachrome will of course always be remembered for at least one reason, the fact that, as far as I am aware, it is the only brand of film that has been immortalised in song.
So perhaps the last word should be left to Paul Simon:
“Kodachrome, they give us those nice bright colours, they give us the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day”
… and what’s wrong with that.
The Kit
Those of us obsessed with the world of film photography are of course always interested in the kit. So for the record the series was shot on five different cameras. The majority was on my Leica M6 with a 35mm Summicron lens, though a Leica 50mm Summicron, Leica 90mm Elmarit and Voigtlander 21mm Color Skopar were also used on occasion.
On days when I was travelling light then initially I carried an Olympus XA3 compact camera that I bought back in 1986, however that took one too many bangs and developed a couple of faults so was replaced with an Olympus XA rangefinder, delightful. I also put a single roll through a Leica M4–2 and another through an Olympus XA2 compact that I picked up from a charity shop. In total I shot 50 rolls of film, that’s 1,800 frames.
