KODACHROME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZpaNJqF4po   a must to play while viewing these images.

I can remember the first roll of Kodachrome I ever photographed. I had to send it all the way to Kansas City to be processed. I can still remember at least 2 photographs I made with that ro

Lady and 2) my Dad's Buick Road master Blue hard top. Later I read that the Kodak lab's processor franchised to Kansas City cost $1,000,000. dollars. A lot of money. I was always fascinated about studying about Kodachrome. In high school I read that the roll of film had 3 layers of B & W film each sensitive to a different spectrum of light 1) layer sensitive to red, 2) layer sensitive to blue and 3) layer sensitive to green that after many steps of processing would produce a layer of cyan, a layer of magenta, and a layer of yellow dye. the three layers of dye sandwiched together produced a color picture. And what a glorious picture that never faded. That is why today's Kodachrome images are not faded like all your other color images. Claims on today's colored paper photos will last 100 years. Hope you're are around to check this claim out. A wonderful scientist, chemist, Kodak films engineer, and good friend, Bob Shanebrook has written the definitive book on Kodachrome and it's on sale at Barnes and Noble. Check it out.

It wasn't easy being green. Or yellow or red or blue, for that matter. While color photography had been around in one form or another since the 1860s, until the Eastman Kodak Company came out with its Kodachrome film in 1935, those wishing to capture a color image had to deal with heavy glass plates, tripods, long exposures and an exacting development procedure, all of which resulted in less than satisfactory pictures — dull, tinted images that were far from true to life. So while Kodak's discontinuation of the iconic color film will affect only the most devoted photo buffs — sales of Kodachrome account for less than 1% of the company's revenue — the June 22, 2013 announcement breaks one of the largest remaining ties to the era of pre-digital photography. It also ends a legacy that includes some of the most enduring images of 20th century America. (See photos by Richard Avedon.)

The Kodachrome process — in which three emulsions, each sensitive to a primary color, are coated on a single film base — was the brainchild of Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes, two musicians turned scientists who worked at Kodak's research facility in Rochester, N.Y. Disappointed by the poor quality of a "color" movie they saw in 1916, the two Leopold's spent years perfecting their technique, which Kodak first utilized in 1935 in 16-mm movie film. The next year, they tried out the process on film for still cameras, although the procedure was not for the hobbyist: the earliest 35-mm Kodachrome went for $3.50 a roll, or about $54 in today's dollars.

While all color films have dyes printed directly onto the film stock, Kodachrome dye isn't added until the development process. "The film itself is basically black and white," says Grant Steinle, vice president of operations at Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kans., the only photo-processing center still equipped to develop Kodachrome film. Steinle says that although all dyes will fade over time, if Kodachrome is stored properly it can be good for up to 100 years. The film's archival abilities, coupled with its comparative ease of use, made it the dominant film for both professionals and amateurs for most of the 20th century. Kodachrome captured a color version of the Hindenburg's fireball explosion in 1936. It accompanied Edmund Hillary to the top of Mount Everest in 1953. Abraham Zapruder was filming with 8-mm Kodachrome in Dallas when he accidentally captured President Kennedy's assassination. National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry used it to capture the haunting green-gray eyes of an Afghan refugee girl in 1985 in what is still the magazine's most enduring cover image.  And a haunting image of her rephotographed as a young woman in 2010, an Afghan woman of 25.