The end of 'A Year of Kodachrome'...

[pontus_wallst_n]

<p>in may 2009, I was informed for the first time of the existance of kodachrome as a photography film. I had previousely used it as K40 Super 8 stock, and after reading alot about it, and the fact that there was only a bit more than a year left to shoot it, i thought i must take the oportunity to shoot some rolls of this historical filmstock. It was not easy at first. The first 3 rolls i ordered i believe must have gotten lost by english mail (not surprisingly)...! Back in Switzerland, i called all photo shops in close range, but all where out of stock. I finally found a shop in august 2009 who had 3 rolls left in stock. Needles to say i took them all. I was now ready to embark on my '1 year of kodachrome' project. I quickly discovered that i would need many more rolls to last me through the 18 or so months of klicking, so i purchased stock from Ebay and some US stores who still had some spare.</p>

<p>Looking back at my year of kodachrome, my rolls ended up being quite widely travelled, as i managed to take and shoot kodachrome in 3 continents and 6 countries, as well as 2 US states. I shot most of it (mostly K64 and some K25) with a minolta 7000 model from 1985, but some of it was also shot with a Nikon F65 and F80. Most people i met, including friends and family wondered what on earth i was doing, in the middle of the "digital era" running around with a camera that was 25 years old, and film, that had to be posted all the way to kansas for processing and then back to switzerland!.</p>

<p>I ended up shooting close to 1800 kodachrome pictures, which i think is close to 50 rolls. Of course, not all of them turned out well, as i quickly discovered that when shooting kodachrome, you had to be extremely carefull with light and shadows, as it was easy to get underexposed parts especially on people's faces, if you where not carefull. However, on the other hand, if you did get the conditions right, and played around with the light a bit in the evening for example, you could get stunning shots, which would be absolutely impossible to obtain with digital cameras. Of course, the richness of colurs and the small "glow" and great contrast that you could obtain was stunning.</p>

<p>Anecdotes, i have quite alot of them, so i will only mention a few here for the moment. In july 2010, when working on a documentary film shoot in Tanzania, I still remember trying to explain to a few tanzanian kindergarden children who wanted to see the photograph i had just taken of them in kodachrome, that the film had to be sent off and processed and then printed, for them to be able to see it, as i did not have a digital camera, unlike my colleague, where they could, at great amazement, see themselves immediately on the screen! Not easy!</p>

<p>I also remember risking my life at 4600 m altitude in the swiss alps, on a vertical cliff, photographing the Edwlweiss flower. and also jumping in last minute to take a few wedding photographs (of bride and "demoiselles d'honneur") in arizona, when the "real" photographer did not show up. they wanted me to take these with a small digital camera for immediate results, which i did, but i also snapped a few kodachrome shots, and told them that they would turn out much better, which they did not really believe, untill they saw the pictures about 7 weeks later! </p>

<p>I took my last roll almost 2 weeks ago, sliding around on the ice with my tripod in freezing cold weather at night in the streets of neuchatel in switzerland, imortalising the christhmas lights. It was with great nostalgia and a bit of sadness that i snapped the last few frames, and heard the film wind back in my camera, knowing that from this moment on, i would never be able to shoot kodachrome ever again... The last 2 rools went off to Dwayne's on the 18th and the 20th of december, by priority signed for, as usual, not wanting to risk to miss the deadline. I just got confirmation from the swiss post that 1 of the rolls arrived at dwayne's on the 27th, hopefully the other one is there by now as well..</p>

<p>My year of kodachrome can be seen on my website :<br>

<a href="http://pontus.smugmug.com/Photography/A-year-of-Kodachrome/10351874_hg256#716282587_VPtGE">http://pontus.smugmug.com/Photography/A-year-of-Kodachrome/10351874_hg256#716282587_VPtGE</a></p>

<p>Please feel free to make any comments on the pictures, as i am about to print some of the best ones, so it would be interesting to know maybe the top 3 or top 4 which people feel show the qualities of kodachrome in the most interesting way (colour, light, contrast..etc) I know these pics may look different depending on which monitor you have...etc<br>

Pontus Wallstén</p>