Kodachrome film retired by Eastman Kodak; brand was color film's first commerical success
BYOLIVIA SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, June 22nd 2009, 11:10 AM
Duprey/AP
The Eastman Kodak company is retiring its iconic Kodachrome brand.
With apologies toPaul Simonand his hit song, theEastman Kodakcompany is taking Kodachrome film off the market this year.
Based in Rochester New York, the company made the announcement Monday, saying it was a hard decision to retire the famous brand.
"KODACHROME Film is an iconic product and a testament to Kodak’s long and continuing leadership in imaging technology,” saidMary Jane Hellyar, the president of Kodak's film, photofinishing and entertainment division.
"It was certainly a difficult decision to retire it, given its rich history. However, the majority of today's photographers have voiced their preference to capture images with newer technology – both film and digital."
Introduced in 1935, Kodachrome became the first color film to score large-scale commercial success.
But as many photographers switch to digital, the groundbreaking Kodachrome accounts for only a fraction of a percent of the company's revenues from still-picture films.
Kodak, a pioneer in photography, has had more than its share of hiccups in adjusting to digital technology. Its stock has declined and the company went through waves of layoffs and plant closings well before the current recession took root.
Among the images captured with Kodachrome that have gone on to become cultural artifacts themselves, photographerSteve McCurryused the film to create hisNational Geographiccover photo of a young Afghan girl, which became an instantly recognizable symbol of that country's plight in 1985.
If images created with the film itself fail to cement it's place in history, Paul Simon immortalized it in his 1973 hit, singing of its "nice bright colors/They give us the greens of summers/Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah ... Mama don't take my Kodachrome away."
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