Kodachrome™
My Female and the Wolfman crossed Tioga Pass on their first road trip with Hector Samuel, when returning from California to Ithaca, NY in August 1979Kodachrome™ photograph © 1979 Mignon & Wolf Naegeli
According to my Female, Kodachrome is a movie to watch for the following reasons: You are into old-time photography, are a geezer-age photographer, still hold nearly worthless Kodak stock, like Ed Harris, crave tearjerkers, or have thousands of Kodachrome™ slides you never published; exactly like my Female — actually, the Wolfman has a few drawers full as well.
The film might be, very-loosely, based on (spoiler alert!) famed photographer Steve McCurry, who is, as far as we know, well and alive. His most famous photograph, I’m sure you all know: the zillion-times published, printed, abused, and copied 1984 “Afghan Girl.” The one of the piercing-blue-eyed young girl on the cover of National Geographic, decades ago.
The film ended—predictably—with lots of Curryish photographs that resulted probably from a producer’s search of stock photography.
Basquiat
To the chagrin of the many, many photographers who preferred Kodachrome’s warm tone over other available slide films, Kodak announced in 2009 that it would end manufacturing of the Kodachrome™ line of products.
Dwayne’s Photo lab persists in Parsons, Kansas, to this day. It was the last Kodak-affiliated lab to discontinue developing and processing Kodachrome™ in 2010, when the chemicals ran out. It remains one of the few labs that still offer traditional photo processing services.
Loved seeing the old photo of you outside your car and camper – and I remember Hector Samuel’s little spot of brown, almost like a beauty mark, near his mouth.