Momma, Don't Take My Kodachrome Away

It's a sad time for those of us who shot roll after roll of Kodachrome, Kodak's color slide film. It's likely that many of the great photographs that have been submitted to this blog were originally shot with Kodachrome.

Kodak announced on June 22nd that they would no longer manufacture the product due to a greatly reduced demand. I understand that there's only one lab in the nation -- somewhere in Kansas, I think -- that still processes it.

Most everyone uses digital cameras today, making it possible for those of us who are photographically challenged to take dozens of shots of a subject to find the one or two that may be worth keeping.

My first decent camera was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7 that I bought at the Kadena Base Exchange on Okinawa in 1963. It was pretty primitive by today's standards, but I used it for years and took many memorable photographs with it, a lot of them on Kodachrome film.

So to commemorate the proud history of Kodachrome and all the scenes that it captured, let's load up the old carousel projector and invite all the neighbors over to watch our vacation slides. Don't forget the popcorn...and none of that instant microwave stuff either.

One other thing: If any of you have old slides of USTDC or the compound area, and you'd like to have them converted to digital images, I'd be happy to do that for you. Just drop me an email and we can sort out the details.