I remember getting my first Kodak Brownie (box) camera when I was 9. That was a long time ago, 1960.

I can still remember the film I use to go buy for it, Kodachrome VP-127. And, I can still recall my dad taking me to the store to buy a roll for $1.29, and my dad buying 8mm silent Kodachrome movie film.

In fact all the great pictures I took, and the bad ones too, were forever captured on Kodachrome. My visit to the Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Mt. Vernon, George Washington's grave, Ford's Theater, the White House, the New York World's Fair, pictures through the segregated-South - the most vivid pictures being restaurants, drinking fountains, and especially bathrooms where there were always three, men, women, coloreds. Our trip through the south took a dramatic turn north because of these unacceptable practices of discrimination. My parents preached equal rights all my life.

And all the good and all the bad were captured on Kodachrome. It was Kodachrome which kept these things alive, past the days of really being there.

Kodachrome certainly forged the thought of “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

It was Kodachrome that held a moment in time, forever. The Wright Brothers plane hanging inside the Smithsonian, John Glenn's and Alan Shepard's Mercury Space Capsule, my trips to school on the Cable Cars in San Francisco, goofing off with my buddies hanging off the cars as they rounded corners, taking the electric bus and the streetcar to San Francisco's Playland-At-The-Beach, the big diving bell ride, and pictures of the bell inside. My grandmother's house on Downey Street (Haight-Ashbury neighborhood) and the neighborhood's boom days of 1967. Concerts outdoors in Golden Gate Park with the Grateful Dead, Asleep At The Wheel, and others, concerts at the Filmore Auditorium and Filmore West, and Winterland snapping Kodachrome pictures while rocking with Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hot Tuna, Janis Joplin & Big Brother and the Holding Company, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tower Of Power and It's A Beautiful Day, skipping school to attend the Vietnam protests in Berkeley, getting tear gassed by the police, and graduation, endless, endless “moments-in-time,” all captured on Kodachrome VP 127, Instamatic 126, and 35mm.

Kodak Instamatic Camera

It was Kodachrome that brought color photography with vivid colors to average people. It was Kodachrome that brought the green eyes of an Afghan girl to the cover of National Geographic. It was Kodachrome that brought the dull world of black and white into living color.

The last time I used Kodachrome was in 1999. And, for me, as the Twentieth Century passed away, I never realized, till this morning, so, did my beloved Kodachrome. In 2000, I bought my first digital camera, a JVC 3.5 mega pixel camera for $1499, and never looked back.

In the early 70s Paul Simon wrote the song “Kodachrome.” The song was a big hit, and in its lyrics we hear “mama's going to take your Kodachrome away...”

Hey, it was just words in a song. The song's lyrics have proven to ring true on this very day, June 23, 2009, mama (Kodak) has taken your Kodachrome away.

After 74 years Kodak has discontinued Kodachrome. Last year, 2008, Kodachrome made up less than 1% of sales. Kodak says it has stocks left that should last through fall.

As, for, me, I need to go buy one-last-roll just to have. Rest in peace Kodachrome, thanks for the memories!

This article was written by Joseph E. Howard and all writing
is Copyright © 2009 Pink Taxi Communications - XCM Inc.
All rights reserved.
http://www.pinktaxi.us

All pictures are copyright to their respective owners.
The Afghan Girl is the property of National Geographic Magazine.

This article is written for educational purposes.

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