Posts Tagged ‘Slide film’
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Kodachrome. That name stirs up many emotions. Floods the mind with many images. Countless of them that you’ve probably seen at some time and point in your life. Time, Life, National Geographic, all had photographers who shot with the iconic (I don’t even think that that word does justice to the emulsion) Kodak slide film. Paul Simon sang “Please don’t take my Kodachrome away”…but Kodak did, no longer producing the film or the infamously toxic chemical process used to develop it K-14.
A little over 5 years ago, I found myself in a closing Ritz camera store in the Grapevine Mills mall. They were trying to unload everything that they could, including rolls of expired film of all kinds. Black and white, Fuji color, Kodak color print, different slide films, 110 (when’s the last time you’ve seen 110 film??). Digging through the bin, I didn’t see anything that caught my eye….until I saw a couple of boxes of K64, expiration 2003. I grabbed them (there were actually alot more than the two I picked up…why didn’t I buy more rolls is beyond me), and I was off. I knew that it was hard to get Kodachrome processed then (I believe that Dwayne’s and one other place still processed K-14 at that time), and I knew that I would have to make the images count, that I had to use them for something special (so I thought), so I brought them home and threw them in the freezer, to be thawed out for that imaginary occasion in the unknown future.
Those rolls sat unused for 5 years.
When the announcement came from Kodak that they were ending the 75 year production run of the film, and support of the K-14 process, I knew that I couldn’t wait forever, that I had to shoot something with the film. The imaginary special occasion was the experience of using this film, and being one of the last groups of people to have Dwayne’s process it (my film made it there around Dec 10th). I shot one roll of K64 (the other roll I gave to Grant Meeks for him to have fun shooting some Kodachrome) and a roll of K200 that I found laying around(I have no idea when or where I bought it!). I decided to shoot the K64 as an exercise in seeing and shooting with limitations; one body (My trusty and war torn Nikon F3), one lens (one of my favorite Nikkors, the 20 2.8 ais – really a limitation in seeing, shooting with only an ultrawide angle lens).
***The First and Last frame***
Tags: Film, Grant Meeks, Kodachrome, Kodak, Laidric Stevenson, Laidric Stevenson photography, personal, Slide film
Posted in Film's Still Good!, GOYA!, Kodachrome RIP!, personal, photography, Random Film Love! | Comments Off
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
I’ll go ahead and say it…I miss film, I miss the feeling of knowing that you only had 12, 24, or 36 shots. I miss that rhythm of opening the back of the camera, taking out that exposed roll and slapping another in its place. I miss that smell when you opened a new unexposed roll. I miss the simplicity of it. I miss the all metal cameras. I feel all of this each time I pick up one of my relics from the past. Not that I have a bunch of old collectibles, all my film cameras were bought used….well used. Paint worn down to the brass around the edges, scratches, buttons that had popped off long ago. I always considered myself a shooter not a collector, I didn’t care how it looked, if the meter worked, and it was light tight, it was good enough for me.
Today starts what I am going to work on becoming a reoccurring feature here; Random Film Love. I’m going to hit the streets, pound the pavement, and get back to the basics. I’m going to get back to what I loved about photography in the past. Not that I don’t love it now…it’s just it was different back then. I don’t know if I’m going to go as far as bringing 1/2 of the darkroom back (the developing stage), I don’t really have the space for the enlarger and trays and such, and I don’t think I want to go back to constantly mixing up developer and fixer every 3 or 4 months. I’d like to thank Dwayne’s photo for the develop and scan of these rolls of film!
I always seem to come back to my old Junior High. It was my first school upon moving here 20 years ago. I met friends here that I still have to this day. I remember playing basketball on the rough asphalt courts during 9th grade PE, then during summers when I was in High school and on into college.
Went back on two separate days – once in 35mm:
And once with the Square:
Tags: arlington tx, Dwayne's photo, golden hour, Laidric Stevenson, Laidric Stevenson photography, life, Olympus SP35, personal, photography, Slide film, Yashica Mat 124G
Posted in Film's Still Good!, Random Film Love! | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
By now everyone knows about Kodak putting the nail into a piece of photographic history by killing off their legendary emulsion Kodachrome earlier this year. And Dwayne’s in Kansas, the only lab in the world that still does the K-14 process (how Kodachrome is developed) announced that they are going to stop developing and processing Kodachrome. I bought two of these rolls of K64 about 5 years ago, (these rolls expired in October 2003) and stuck them in my freezer. Due to a recent move out of my old apartment, I took out all the film that I had frozen (most of it expired). I had forgotten about these rolls, I was saving them for some special occasion or something. And now, with the end of the year rapidly approaching us, I need to take to the streets and shoot something with it, just to say that I shot some Kodachrome. I don’t know exactly what though….
Tags: 35 F2D, Dwayne's, Kodachrome, Kodak, nikkor, Nikon, personal, photography, Slide film
Posted in photography | Comments Off
