[right] Kodachrome slides taken in Marida Mexico, in the Yucatan. Shot with an OM-4 and processed at the Kodalux lab in Findlay Ohio in 1988.
Sometime today the last roll of Kodachrome film will be developed at Dwayne's Photo in Parsons Kansas. It is the final end of an era. Much like John Lennon's quip about Elvis, for me they killed Kodachrome when Kodachrome 25 was discontinued. That was in 2001. In reality I had long before switched to E6 films.
I learned photography shooting Kodachrome. I took pictures of trains with my dad and my uncle John, in those days you weren't a serious railfan unless you were shooting Kodachrome. We shared images via slideshows and that's what the magazines wanted, not that I ever felt good enough to submit images to any magazines. The credit in the rail magazines wasn't just "photo by..." it was "kodachrome by ..."
I think shooting slides is a great way to learn photography, you see very clearly what changes in exposure can do, what differences in the color temperature of light can do, what color can do, what light itself can do. There was also that excitement in getting the yellow box, and the smell! Memories.
My family shot stills, slides, we didn't do home movies at all, so that is something I've come to later in my life. If you haven't had the experience, home movies on Kodachrome are amazing. Simple, magical slices of time. There really is nothing else like that. That ends today too.
I am happy to say that among the mountain of film that Dwayne's got this week is one roll of slides and three rolls of super 8 film from me. Film shot in tribute to the great American invention: Kodachrome, and for a life happily spent (so far!) in photography.
Farewell Kodachrome.
