The quote below appeared on Slashdot (News for nerds, stuff that matters). It appears that another nail on the coffin of film photography is being hammered down with the last stroke in December of this year.

Wired’s Gadget Lab picked up a wistful story from the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle on the processing of the last roll of Kodachrome film that Kodak produced. “Freelance photojournalist Steve McCurry, whose work has graced the pages of National Geographic, laid 36 slides representing the last frames of Kodachrome film on the light board sitting on a counter in Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons [Kansas]. … National Geographic has closely documented the journey of the final roll of Kodachrome manufactured, down to its being processed. Dwayne’s is the only photo lab left in the world to handle Kodachrome processing…” If you have any rolls of Kodachrome sitting around not yet exposed, better get them to Dwayne’s before December 10, 2010.

Like movie reels on celluloid, Kodachrome slides can last forever, given the right kind of care. One wonders about present day images and how they are being preserved. Historians in future centuries may have a hard time trying to find evidence of how we live by the pictures we took. Consumer photography today produces images that can be enjoyed by many, but they may not last as long as did the fading black and white prints in the old family album. Most color prints fade fast, I am told.

I think of the many slides I took in the 50s and 60s in places like Berlin and Norway, to say nothing of many family events at home. Most were projected on screen only once or twice and enjoyed by just a few.

The professionals who create images for National Geographic and want their work to be available to many future generations have much more at stake than I do, but, still, the passing of Kodachrome slides is a wistful “end of an era” moment for all of us who have ever produced a slide.

Dave, doing better with digital.