Digital may take Kodachrome away

Fans of film's vibrant lasting colors mourn its dwindling stock

By Ben Dobbin, Associated Press

Published September 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

• 0 Comments
• Email
• Print

Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Steve McCurry poses with his photo of an Afghan refugee - a Kodachrome image that shows off the film's subtle rendering of light, contrast and color.

David Duprey / Associated Press

Kodachrome 64, made by Kodak.

It is an elaborately crafted photographic film, extolled for its sharpness, vivid colors and archival durability. Yet die-hard fan Alex Webb is convinced the digital age soon will take his Kodachrome away.

"Part of me feels like, boy, if only I'd been born 20 years earlier," says the 56-year-old photographer, whose work has appeared in National Geographic magazine. "I wish they would keep making it forever. I still have a lot of pictures to take in my life."

Only one commercial lab in the world, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., still develops Kodachrome, a once ubiquitous brand that has freeze-framed the world in rich but authentic hues since it was introduced in the Great Depression.

Eastman Kodak Co. now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35mm, 64-speed format. Production runs - in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls - fall at least a year apart.

Kodak won't say when the last one occurred or hint at Kodachrome's prospects. Kodachrome stocks currently on sale have a 2009 expiration date. If the machines aren't fired up again, the company might just sell out the remaining supplies, and that would be the end.

For decades, Kodachrome was the standard choice for professional color photography and avant-garde filmmaking.

At its peak, a reverential Paul Simon crooned "Mama, don't take my Koda- chrome away" in 1973.

It's the only film to have a state park named after it - photogenic Kodachrome Basin State Park in the red-rock canyons of southern Utah.

But the landmark color-transparency created by Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes - "God and Man" in photo research circles - went into a tailspin a generation ago.

It was eclipsed by video, easy-to-process color negative films and a tidal-wave preference for hand-sized prints.

Nowadays, Kodachrome is confined to a small global market of devotees who wouldn't settle for anything else.

The digital revolution is undermining all varieties of film, even a storied one that garnered its share of spectacular images: the giant Hindenburg zeppelin dissolving in a red-orange fireball in 1936; Edmund Hillary's dreamy snapshot of Tenzing Norgay atop Everest in 1953; and, most iconic of all, Abraham Zapruder's 8-millimeter reel of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

Steve McCurry's portrait of an Afghan refugee girl with haunting gray-green eyes on the cover of National Geographic in 1985 is considered one of the finest illustrations of the film's subtle rendering of light, contrast and color harmony.

"You just look at it and think, this is better than life," says McCurry, 58, who has relied heavily on Kodachrome for all but the past two years of a 33-year career.

John Larish, a consultant and writer on photography, marvels at its staying power. "I've got Kodachromes from the 1930s and the blue skies look as bright as they did in the 1930s," he says.

Assorted dentists, plastic surgeons and ophthalmologists still rely on its clarity and unique palette, especially for multiyear studies.

"Different eye diseases can have different colors," says Thomas Link, an ophthalmic photographer at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic who shoots 10 to 15 rolls of Kodachrome a week to help doctors diagnose and treat illnesses.

McCurry, who shot the "Afghan Girl" picture with Kodachrome, is turning to digital cameras as the technology gap closes.

"I like to shoot in extremely low light, inside of a home, a mosque, a covered bazaar," he says. "To stop movement, it's just absolutely impossible to do that with Kodachrome or with practically any film."

Yet aficionados like Webb remain bewitched by Kodachrome's "vibrant but not oversaturated colors."

"It has an emotional punchiness that really always seemed right for me," especially in tropical urban locales he gravitates to in the Caribbean and in "mucky light" near dawn or dusk, Webb says.

Digital boasts "remarkable clarity," he says, but "it's almost too clear and doesn't seem to have depth and texture the way film does."

Webb was "incredibly distressed" when Kodachrome 200, his all-time favorite, bit the dust in November 2006. He stockpiled 600 rolls and is using up the last 150 to complete a photography book on Cuba this fall.

"It seems kind of appropriate because Cuba is a world of the '50s on some level," Webb says. "It has existed in a bubble outside the world of globalization now for 50 years, and Kodachrome goes hand in hand."

Featured

• Denver turns 150

  

  Read about the city's history, look at old photos and see a list of influential Denverites.

• Mount Crushmore

  

  Which four Broncos greats should be immortalized on Mount Crushmore? Vote here.

• Winter Escapes

  

  Your insider’s guide to the copious joys of the coolest season.

• Rocky Multimedia

  

  The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on what's happening today.

• Weekend plans?

  

  Figure out things to do this weekend with the help of our entertainment calendar.

• Bronco Dean's rant

  

  Listen to Bronco Dean's pregame rant on the Raiders.

• Season To Share

  

  The Post-News Season To Share campaign provides grants to area nonprofits.

• The Rocky @ 150 Years

  

  The Rocky was there when Colorado became a state in 1876. Read our coverage.

• A Dozen on Denver

  

  And the winner is... Robert Ziegler! See the whole fiction series by clicking here.