Last one to leave Kodak Park, please turn out the lights.

It was not so very long ago that I used to take pictures of The Teenager on roll-film Kodachrome 64.

I’ve been on a Death Watch for Kodachrome ever since they killed 120, and then K25. Kodachrome has been increasingly hard to find in the shops: Target and Walmart stopped carrying ALL slide film last summer. Last September, Kodak closed their FairLawn lab, and Eastman Kodak now contracts out their Kodachrome development. I understand that there are now only three K-14 lines left on the planet (Kansas, Switzerland, and Japan). (Though I would hope that EK still has a test line to check the film as it comes off the line; I presume that line is in Rochester, but I suppose they might have moved that to China, as well.

K64 has still been in the local drugstore chain Eckert, though; that is, until today, when they started closing out their stock at 75% off. I hit two of them this afternoon, and snared nineteen 24 exposure rolls @ $1.68.

That should hold me until Process K-14 is gone. I give it until the end of 2006.

(Words & music by Paul Simon, 1973)

When I think back
On all the (crap) I learned in high school
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of ed-u-cation
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they’d never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away
(repeat and fade...)

(Addendum: Kodachrome is still around as of April 2007.)