End of the line for Kodachrome
Kodachrome film has been storing our memories for the past 75 years, but, as I'm sure many of you know, production of the film ended last year and the 31 December is the deadline for film to arrive at the processors in Kansas.
To mark its passing I asked readers of this blog to send in their pictures and memories of Kodachrome, as well as their final frame, the last shot they took on the brand, and I present a selection of those here.
One photographer, Henry Iddon, sent more than just photographs, he also included a few thoughts on what made Kodachrome special:
Henry Iddon:
"Although I've been a full time professional photographer for 15 years I have never used Kodachrome for a client, or had any connection to it for client work. Fast turnaround of E6 and digital capture did for that.
Ìý"No, for me Kodachrome will always be connected to family memories, and particularly childhood memories of my late Father who died when I was only 11. Through the 70's we would have family ski trips to Scotland, or sailing and hiking excursions to the Lake District, each trip resulting in a roll or two of Kodachrome 64 or 25 being exposed.
Ìý
"I can see my father diligently completing the return envelope - our address being almost embossed into the thick paper. Would the fact that such care had been taken, and each letter overwritten so it almost looked like a 'bold' font, prevent the precious cargo being lost by the Royal Mail?
Ìý
"Then the wait, the anticipation. A yellow plastic box in a cardboard sleeve would hit the matt - the address slip, hand written in 15 point 'Iddon' bold, would have guided the memories back from Hemel Hempstead (Kodak's laboratory in the UK for Kodachrome at that time).
Ìý
"A slide show, curtains draw, all of us gathered round to relive our holiday escapades. Wonderful memories from a yellow box.
Ìý
"As I was so young when he passed away there had never been the opportunity for an adult conversation, or to hear about his escapades in the 50's and 60's. What were his memories? Where were they now? Had they died also?
Ìý"The answer was in a heavyweight card board box, containing numerous yellow boxes and in some cases a title, hand written in 15 point 'Iddon' bold. A life in Kodachrome - a life I had access to thanks to Kodachrome.
Ìý
"These images can be scattered on a light box, and thanks to the permanence of the medium, show the escapades of 40 and 50 years ago that I know so little about. The details don't matter - some basic facts do for me, and the rest is for the imagination.
Ìý
"So why do I still shoot the occasional roll of Kodachrome? Simple really, I want my daughters to have the opportunity in years to come to unearth a yellow box, open it, and hold up to the light to see the slides that bring back their memories, and memories of our little family.
Ìý
"In theory digitally captured images will be around for ever, but only as far as compatibility is maintained. Holding a DVD, or CD, or what will then be a vintage hard-drive up to the light will not allow memories to flood out.
Ìý
"But a simple colour slide will, it's so simple. Kodachrome isn't about iconic commercial or editorial images; it's about millions of boxes in lofts all over the world. Wonderful memories from a yellow box."
Here are a couple more of Henry's pictures and .
Another reader, Mike Truman, also has a tale to tell about his many years spent shooting on Kodachrome:
"The photo (above right) was from my last roll of Kodachrome and was taken on 11 September this year. The scene is the River Great Ouse, Stony Stratford, about ten minutes' walk from where I live. The camera was an Olympus OM-4Ti, with a Zuiko 21mm lens and a graduated grey filter.
"My wife finally persuaded me to go digital in September, so I took my newly acquired Canon G11 along with me on this final Kodachrome shoot. I was curious to see how the same scene would be immortalized by two different technologies.
Ìý
"The other photo (bottom right) was taken with the G11 from the same spot a couple of minutes later. By then, of course, the light had changed, so I knew the two images would be radically different; furthermore, the Canon was used without any filters.
Ìý
"Nevertheless, I feel somehow that the scene shown in the first picture was meat and drink to Kodachrome 64 and the Olympus lens: the contrast between clouds and sky combined with the soft colours of the grass in the meadows would, I suspect, not have been reproduced in quite the same way by a digital camera, unless of course it had received some generous help from Photoshop.
Ìý
"I have been shooting on Kodachrome for 44 years, if I'm not mistaken. I started using Kodachrome II 828 roll film in a Coronet Viscount camera. The films were sent to Kodak in yellow screw topped canisters which you had to place in small canvas-reinforced bags, which were closed with a drawstring.
Ìý
"The postman's daily visits would be carefully monitored for the next couple of weeks until the little yellow box arrived with the twelve 28mm X 40mm slides in their 2" cardboard mounts.
Ìý
"I think each film cost 17/6, including processing, or 88p in today's money. This doesn't sound much, but was a considerable outlay for a 16 year old in 1966, so just one roll of Kodachrome was reserved for the annual summer holiday.
Ìý
"I didn't start using Kodachrome in a big way for another ten years or so, by which time I was earning a salary and had graduated to 35mm. Kodachrome 25 and 64, which came onto the market around that time, were way ahead of the competition and stayed there until Fuji's Velvia appeared several years later. Those were the days!"
Here are a few more of your Kodachrome memories:
Mark Smith:
"This was taken on the North East Coast of Scotland in September 1999 on my lovely (why did I sell it?) Nikon FM2. I carried on shooting black and white and colour print film until I went digital in 2005. Its not my best but it is my last..."
Raid Amin:
"I find it to be most suitable that I take photos of what I hold dearest to me, my daughters, with what I have left in Kodachrome 64 film. While I had been using Fujichrome for over 25 years, I felt sentimental about Kodachrome to disappear."
Lewis Graham (Photo below left):
"My last frame of Kodachrome is of my sister-in-law at her wedding in 2009. It was a chilly February day with poor light but the tones of Kodachrome cast a special light over the shot. The camera used was a 30-year old Olympus OM-10 and the 50 mm standard lens."
Enda McBride (Photo below right):
"This is the last frame I took on Kodachrome, not because it was no longer available, but because I moved to medium format rather than 35mm photography. My wife and I did a lot of 'tramping' as it is called in New Zealand, or hiking as you might know it. This picture is of one of the many swing bridges over rivers in the Tararua Ranges of mountains here."
Edward Conway:
"I tried to capture water bouncing off a leaf, as you can see I failed miserably. It was taken using a Nikon FM and processed in May 1991. At that time I had a young family and could not afford my hobby any more."
Lewis Bush:
"I went out for a walk in the woods a couple of months ago to use a final roll up and found three baby squirrels. They were too young to be afraid so I was able to get very close. One of them was so unafraid that it tried to climb up my leg."
Cee Pike:
"I only started shooting film in any volume again this year, after many years of digital. I got involved with my local Flickr group, which includes a number of film devotees, and I learned/re-learned from them. I experimented with different films and techniques, using my father's trusty Nikon FM and an Olympus OM10 picked up for pennies. Your blog alerted me to the demise of Kodachrome and I thought I should, before it's gone for good. I'm really pleased with the results, even though I underexposed most of what I shot."
Regular readers of this blog will know I have been shooting a long term project on Kodachrome, a project that also draws to a close on New Year's Eve. and the final photograph will be uploaded on New Years Eve.
I'm 
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