RIP Kodachrome

Kodachrome T-Shirt sold at Dwayne's Photo

Born in 1935 on December 30, 2010 we said goodbye to Kodachrome, the Kodak film used by so many people for its vibrant color.  I remember selling and using this film back in 1984 when I worked as a salesman and store manager for a chain of camera stores in Northern New Jersey.  I got this job right out of college, because in 1983 when I graduated with a degree in Environmental Management no one cared about the environment and jobs were hard to come by, so I found a job in a camera store because I knew something about photography and it paid well (seemed like a lot back then $410 / week plus commission).  We sold Kodachrome and processed the film, mostly in 35mm slide format, but I digress.


The film of choice for most professionals and some amateur (most thought they were professionals) photographers, Kodak finally couldn't sell enough to make a profit and let store inventories dwindle in the Fall 2009.  Most of the film was purchased by professionals, but there was only enough processing chemicals to last until December 2010.  A small company in Parsons Kansas (Dwayne's Photo) was the sole location in the entire world (that's correct the ENTIRE WORLD) that could process the film.  Film came in from such far away places as China and Australia those last few days and at the end of the day on December 30th Kodachrome was no more, may it rest in peace. But fear not fellow photographers, Dwayne's business is still booming because they are still processing Disc, 126 and 110 format films (if you don't know what these formats are you can not call yourself a photographer) as well as the regular 35mm and movie film, remember 8mm.


Photography like everything else is a changing art with new technology to accommodate that change.  The art of developing film is slowing dying. Develop, Stop and Fix and playing with exposure times to get the perfect picture in a dark room where you can barely see anything around you will someday come to an end. Today's photographer's deal in the digital world and with computer programs like Photoshop. Exposure time is not as important since correcting this is only a few clicks away. A portrait of a person can be adjusted and red eye removed with a few more clicks. No need to fool around with chemicals and clean up the dark room afterwards. No need to worry about being low on film or shooting too many pictures, just pop in a new memory card. Have a nice picture of yourself but want to change the background, just let Photoshop do that in a few more clicks. Well you get the point, the nostalgia known as making (processing) a photograph is slowly fading and it is only a matter of time before this all becomes a museum exhibit.


So what's the future for photographers, both amateur as well as professionals? Hopefully it will not be diminished to a cell phone camera with interchangeable lenses.  My prediction is that the price of high quality digital cameras will continue to fall with more automatic bells and whistles to fix every photographic mistake automatically. You can already buy a camera that will not take a picture until the subject smiles; so what's next?  3D cameras are already making a reappearance (it was tried previously but failed), photoshop on a chip built into the camera and I suspect holographic photography is in the future.  What ever the future brings, one thing that can not be replaced by technology is the eye of the photographer.  A good photographer has an eye for taking good pictures.  So for all you amateur photographers out there that still remember the old days of Develop, Stop and Fix, develop a good eye, purchase the best glass (lens) you can and let the technology do the rest.