I ran across this video at one of my favorite photography sites, Strobist.
What a great way of showing that they can both acknowledge mistakes and go forward with technology! For years Kodak was THE photography company. They made cameras, film and the chemical process to develop and print the pictures we produced. They were the premier film, chemical and print paper manufacturers in the world. Most professionals would not use anything else. When I got into photography, I was like everyone else in America. I started out with a Kodak Instamatic 134 camera as a kid.When I was in high school I took a photography class, learned how to shoot pictures with a 35mm camera using Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X black and white film, developed that film with Kodak D-76 developer, stop bath and fixer, then printed the pictures on Kodak paper developed with Kodak Dektol developer, stop bath and fixer. Everything but the camera was Kodak.When I shot my pictures in my early years I usually used Kodacolor negative print film, but I began to love landscape photography. What I didn’t know in those early years was what most professional photographers did know: To get great color for those landscape shots, I should be using slide film. But not the standard Ektachrome that used a relatively simple E6 development process, but rather the more expensive but richly colored Kodachrome.
Kodachrome was known for not only rich true to life colors but it’s archival qualities. It was the main film used by National Geographic photographers for color photography when I was reading it back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Paul Simon even wrote a song about it.
In the late 70s, things began to change. Fujifilm, a Japanese photographic film and equipment company came up with a new film that had brighter and more saturated colors than Kodachrome, called Velvia. This new film had very fine grain and the colors, although too saturated for some subjects like people, were perfect for landscape and nature photos because of the deeply saturated reproduction of greens and reds. National Geographic photographers (as well as the growing numbers of pro and amateur nature photographers) began to turn to Fuji for there film. Fuji also made their own commercial print processing equipment, chemicals, paper, etc. Kodak had a major rival.
In the 90s digital photography became a viable consumer option. By the turn of the century, photography was turned on it’s head. Film photographers were oftem caught by surprise and it seemed Kodak was too. I think that many thought this transition to digital was going to be a long slow process. But it happened almost overnight.
I remember thinking at some point that I would really like to set up a darkroom in the basement, but I just didn’t have the time or money to make it all happen, although I did buy some chemicals and tanks for developing black and white film. But then I went from trying to decide what film camera or accessories to buy to virtually dumping all of my film equipment for digital in just a few short months. As soon as I saw the potential for digital, I not only bought a digital camera, but I started a part time business, because I knew that for the first time I could shoot on speculation and make money.
I thought Kodak would go out of business, being seemingly caught by surprise. But this video is a nice testament to their resolve to stick around.
I miss the good old days of film sometimes. There was something nice about the simplicity of a totally manual film camera. You loaded the film, set the camera according to your knowledge of understanding of light and exposure (and the light meter), and exposed that one frame of film. Wind the film, and you’re ready for the next exposure. I liked the tactile feedback, the organic nature of it. Ah, the good old days.
