Should Old Aquaintance Be Forgot...
On the passing of a film...
I knew it was coming. How could I not? Anyone who works at a history museum of any size is a tuned to the historic changes that happen. And yet it didn't hit me hard until now. Kodachrome is now dead. The last part of the puzzle of developing, the blue ink that is used to build the colors was delivered to Dwane's Photo in Parson's, Kansas and the retired the developer for the film on December 30, 2010. Any slides you may not yet have finished, any canisters of standard kodakchrome are just going to sit there, unusuable. Signs of our ephemeral link with family histories. Images and family histories left undeveloped are now unlikely to be seen. Ever.
Other related links.
The Kodakchrome Project
For Kodakchrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas by A.G. Sulzberger of the New York Times
A Brief History of Kodak Kodachrome Film by Time
And a Video of a song that is now going to be historically specific (i.e. Anyone born the last ten years won't have any real understanding of this song.)
On a similar note, a month ago the museum I work at was donated an old camera and the finished photographs from the camera, which was made from the 50s and 60s. it was just the sort of camera which Kodachrome would have been used in. I have been Accessioning the black and white photographs but have yet to get to the colored ones. Are those tubes of undeveloped film going to disappear into the trash now there is no good way of developing them? Few museums are going to have the space to devote to those undeveloped rolls of the past. What are going to happen to them?
I knew it was coming. How could I not? Anyone who works at a history museum of any size is a tuned to the historic changes that happen. And yet it didn't hit me hard until now. Kodachrome is now dead. The last part of the puzzle of developing, the blue ink that is used to build the colors was delivered to Dwane's Photo in Parson's, Kansas and the retired the developer for the film on December 30, 2010. Any slides you may not yet have finished, any canisters of standard kodakchrome are just going to sit there, unusuable. Signs of our ephemeral link with family histories. Images and family histories left undeveloped are now unlikely to be seen. Ever.
Other related links.
The Kodakchrome Project
For Kodakchrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas by A.G. Sulzberger of the New York Times
A Brief History of Kodak Kodachrome Film by Time
And a Video of a song that is now going to be historically specific (i.e. Anyone born the last ten years won't have any real understanding of this song.)
On a similar note, a month ago the museum I work at was donated an old camera and the finished photographs from the camera, which was made from the 50s and 60s. it was just the sort of camera which Kodachrome would have been used in. I have been Accessioning the black and white photographs but have yet to get to the colored ones. Are those tubes of undeveloped film going to disappear into the trash now there is no good way of developing them? Few museums are going to have the space to devote to those undeveloped rolls of the past. What are going to happen to them?