Kodak is ceasing production of Kodachrome. I have boxes and boxes of Kodachrome slides taken in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. I tried using it a year ago but was not happy. It could have been the processing. There is only one lab left. E6 rules the transparency world but I've been in the negative world for some time now so it doesn't really affect me. I'm still sad to see it go.

Fortune's Kodachrome legacy

Walker Evans, 1957

"Walker Evans portrays caddies from the Pinehurst Golf Course of North Carolina in this photograph published in Fortune's October 1957 issue."

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BigYellowDaddy Takes Our Kodachrome Away
by A. D. Coleman

"We get the phrase “seeing the handwriting on the wall” from the Biblical story of the cyrptic message written by a disembodied hand on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, whereat said ghostly extremity inscribed the words “Mene Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” (Old Testament, Book of Daniel 5: 1-6, 25-8.)

"The Columbia Encyclopedia (sixth edition, 2008) tells us that “These Aramaic words may be translated literally as ‘It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.’ Daniel interpreted this to mean that the king’s deeds had been weighed and found deficient and that his kingdom would therefore be divided.” (Here’s Rembrandt’s version of the scene.)

"I don’t claim any prophetic ability. I don’t even lay much stock in my intuitive capacity, believing, as my late colleague Richard Kirstel often said, that “Intuition is like magic: it works, but the quality control sucks.” I don’t have special access to photo-industry insiders, and while I keep an ear to the ground on general principles I don’t listen especially closely to that industry’s mavens.

"At the same time, I try my best to keep up with whatever news affects me as a member of our lens culture, I attend some of the trade expos, I talk with and listen closely to photographers, I observe at first hand what goes on in photo-education programs around the world, and I make a point of reading the handwriting on the walls. So, when Eastman Kodak announced on June 22 that it had ceased production of Kodachrome film after 74 years, I didn’t consider that at all surprising. Indeed, I found myself in the odd position of thinking “I told you so.” "

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