If there is any one product that has to do with my own personal success (and millions of other photographers too for that matter), it is Kodak. When I was going to Brooks Institute School of Photography, it seemed that nearly everything we used was Kodak yellow and red. Kodak fixer could indeed fix anything, we were only as good as the Kodak film we shot, and color was Kodak vibrant. Like many other professional photographers, I love the company and what it has done for the culture of photography. So it with great sadness that I learned of Kodak’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January and their intent to exit the digital capture business.

It’s like Apple dropping computers or Jack Daniel’s switching to milk. It ain’t fittin, as they say. You really know that the world’s gone to hell if Kodak isn’t making photographic stuff. Fuel up the rocketship.

Kodak essentially invented the concept of “the snapshot,” with the very first Kodak camera in the late 1880’s. For the first time, nearly anyone could make a photograph. Their motto was “You push the button, and we do the rest.” For all intents, Kodak WAS photography.

Kodak's webpage announcing their reorganization. This still seems a bit surreal, and almost like it's from the universe next door and not ours. I imagine that we'll know it's real when we can't get Kodak products anymore. I dread that day.

A lot of us photographers have been watching Kodak’s slow demise for quite some time now, and are not all that surprised that it has come down to this Chapter 11 status. It’s not a happy or unexpected realization by any means, but we still hope that Kodak will rise out of the ashes. If I were a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, I’d look into the section below titled “Did Kodak make the nails for their own coffin?” I’m sure that there are many nuances to this story that the public is not privy too, but us professional photographers have been  bearing witness to a few decades worth of missteps that more than likely had something to do with their downfall.

Just last week I was shooting Kodak Tri-X black & white film with a wide-field camera. Not for nostalgia's sake, but because I needed some cool cityscape photos in black & white.

Abridged Kodak Story

In order to understand the above webpage describing Kodak’s exit out of dedicated capture devices, you really need to understand who they were and examine the core of their essence, so here goes, please bear with me. This story could actually be published in book length, but since this is a blog, here is the McNeil condensed version (part of this blog entry was plucked out of my lecture notes from when I taught a History of Photography course).

In the early 1870’s, photographers couldn’t even buy pre-made negatives, film did not exist. This is a special area of research for me, as I have a collection of glass plate negatives that marks the time at the cusp between when photographers had to make the collodion hand coated negatives and when they were able to simply purchase ready-made dry plate negatives. Photographers had to hand-coat their own glass plates (which was closer to alchemy than science) and essentially made their own negatives.

Large format hand coated wet plate collodion negative that predated the manufacture of film. Negative by Felix Bonfils at the ruins of Capernaum, from the McNeil collection. You can easily see where the photographer was carefully painting the negative with a black opaque material to render a white sky, because the collodion wasn't capable of a proper exposure of the sky while photographing a landscape. The wet plate collodion negative was only sensitive to blue light.

I learned many of the nuances of glass plate negatives from a scholar at the George Eastman House by the way (she spent the afternoon carefully examining my 1870’s & 1880 glass plate negatives made by the famous Felix Bonfils). The concept of being able to buy photographic film hardly existed prior to Kodak’s arrival. There were a number of international companies that made dry plate negatives, but it was Kodak who transformed it into an amateur phenomenon, which created millions of new photographers. It means that more than any other company, Kodak transformed photography  into a common practice for nearly anyone to use, and they did it on a global scale.

When I think of Kodak, I think of the entire culture of photography since the late 1800’s, and especially how they’ve dominated nearly every phase of the culture and industry of photography for so long, most notably during the entire 20th century. In this sense, Kodak is nearly a quintessential or archetypal model of American industry. Kodak obviously didn’t invent photography, but rather stepped in nearly 50 years later to make photography easily available to the world for the first time.

Kodak round photo from the first Kodak camera, dated late 1800's, from the first generation of cameras that used roll film. Library of Congress, number 3g04797u. This is an uncropped download that shows a visual aesthetic with the first Kodak snapshots (the photo is a bit askew, but this is the way it was presented from the archive). Kodak learned early that women were primary consumers of their products, partly because women made most of the family snapshots, and partly just because they were damn good photographers. Therefore, Kodak aimed much of their advertising and corporate strategies towards women.

A quirky bit of history has the Reverend Hannibal Goodwin teaching bible studies with lantern slides in the mid-1880’s. He was looking for a way to make this easier, and discovered that he could transfer the texts onto a type of flexible film called nitrocellulose and filed a patent for it in 1887, two years before Kodak’s patent for nearly the same thing. Goodwin contended that the patent was rightfully his, and sold it to the Ansco company, which sued Kodak for it and won a five million dollar judgement years later, in March of 1914. This little scenario had to do with the invention of roll film, which essentially acted as a literal basis for photography for over 100 years, plus made motion picture film possible.

Kodak mass produced film to create the revolution in photography that made it available to nearly anyone. The key phrase here is mass availability, ease of use and affordable prices. Roll film is what made this happen, and it is likely the number one technological advance that moved photography into popular culture.

A scholar could make the assertion that George Eastman was a visionary, and his powerful personality had everything to do with Kodak’s success as a large corporation. This is a critical stance, because I’ll also make the claim that without a visionary leader at the top, a company can flounder, and when important aspects of a company are left to committees to determine, things can go drastically wrong. Eastman died in 1932.

Eastman was an astute business person, and could be compared to the Bill Gates of his day in that instead prioritizing camera production, he set Kodak’s priority on the manufacture of film. It’s kind of what Bill Gates and Microsoft did with computers regarding selling the operating system, and let others fight it out with building the computers. It meant that Kodak became the de facto near-monopoly for the sale of film, and in fact held many of the roll film patents.

Throughout the entire 20th century, Kodak dominated the industry and culture of photography. It became clear in the 1940’s that other countries could manufacture the high-end cameras more affordably and Kodak gave up that part of the industry. Up until then they made a number of professional level large format cameras and lenses, in addition to cameras such as the legendary Ektra and classic Kodak Bantam Special. It became clear that Japan could manufacture high quality cameras at more affordable prices, so Kodak gave up that segment of the camera market and prioritized affordable snapshot cameras that of course encouraged the use of high volumes of their film.

Kodak Bantam Special from 1936. In my opinion, this was the most beautiful camera ever designed. It is ultra-compact (around 3 inches wide), made of precision machined parts with an aluminum shell, was fast to operate and made high quality photographs on 828 sized film. It costed $110.00 new, which translates to $1,793.75 in 2012 dollars (according to the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator).

The Kodak Bantam Special was designed by the legendary designer Walter Teague. It had a lightning fast f/2 lens that allowed high quality photos to be made with the slower ISO Kodachrome film. This was a camera for the true photographic connoisseurs who only wanted the best of the best, which of course means that I use one, even today (B&H sells 828 film for this camera). The pre-war versions used the German Compur shutters; Kodak was starting to use German parts for some of their cameras.

By the mid-to late 1900’s it was clear that Kodak really didn’t have any real rivals with film manufacture, even as there were dozens of other excellent film producers. Kodak was relegated to the production of amateur cameras (millions of units per camera model), having given up on the manufacture of professional quality cameras in favor of amateur versions, where volume was the key to success. Not only that, but as mentioned earlier, the cameras were not the key income producer, it was the film that Kodak was targeting with their largest volume of sales. Kodak also had the near monopoly with professional quality films too, it’s where pros went to get the film that defined their livelihoods. Kodak spent millions of dollars on research and development to assure that they stayed on top as the company that had a reputation for making the best films in the world.

The Kodak Brownie was produced in many incarnations and is one of the all-time volume sellers for cameras in the world. They were made of cheap materials and easily mass produced to sell to the masses. Everyone was supposed to be able to afford one, even people in the lower classes who couldn’t afford luxuries; Eastman’s philosophy was to make photography available to everyone. Many photographer’s first cameras (including myself) were Kodak Brownies.

Kodak’s most legendary film was the Kodachrome slide film, which was only discontinued last year as a casualty of the digital photography revolution. Their other flagship film was black and white Tri-X film, which is still manufactured today (and is what I ask my own students to use in our black and white film class, by the way). By the mid-1970’s Kodak sold an astounding 90% of the film in America; nearly a monopoly. These were the good times, and darker events were to soon unfold.

The Center for Creative Imaging in Maine was "THE" place to learn digital photography back in the early 1990's. It's where I learned many aspects of digital photography; it was an awe-inspiring place to learn, because Kodak spared no expense in making it the state of the art facility in the world for digital photography.

Did Kodak make the nails for their own coffin?

1st Nail: Ektachrome & the advent of Fujifilm

To begin with, I’ll make the assertion that these seven Kodak missteps happened because there wasn’t a George Eastman or Steve Jobs type visionary leader at the top to cut through all the nonsense and simply see that things got done, period. No messing around or heads would roll. I’m betting that not only did heads not roll, but there wasn’t any one entity held responsible for this long list of failures. My bet is that it was the board of directors trying to do some very difficult tasks via committee and it simply did not work. Steve Jobs would have told you straight out that some things you simply do not vote on, and in order to make innovation a reality, you must have a very strong-willed, tenacious leader taking charge and seeing that bad things absolutely did not happen, at  least not on your watch.

So in a very real sense, not only did bad things happen, they also happened in slow motion over many decades, and by this January’s Chapter 11 filing, there was hardly anything anyone could do to stop the downward spiral.

In my opinion, one of the big Kodak missteps happened throughout the 1970’s. For some reason, Kodak did not apply a high level of quality control over their Ektachrome films. Many of the 35mm versions of Ektachrome were simply awful with obvious color shifts and had a tendency to fade fairly quickly.

One of the drawbacks with Kodachrome was that it took a long time to process, and pros wanted a film that could be processed quickly and without the highly specialized labs that Kodachrome required. Even though it was the best film ever made, Kodachrome took too long to process in this speeded up world. I can remember sending packets of film to the closest Kodachrome lab in Palo Alto via many of the new overnight shipping companies that were springing up at this time.

Ektachrome slide film was supposed to fill the need for fast, same day processing and it only required a more basic process called E-6 chemicals and processing equipment. From what I understand, it was also supposed to use less toxic chemicals than the Kodachrome compounds. At any rate,  many of the Ektachrome versions fell right on their faces as dismal failures. Professionals were beyond belief that Kodak would release a substandard film, and voted with their feet by simply not buying the film. In the meantime, a company named Fujifilm in Japan was working on producing a high quality transparency film that could use the easier and more affordable E-6 same-day processing that didn’t have to be shipped to a specialized lab.

Fujifilm stepped in during the early 1980's and filled the gaping void left by Kodak.

Fujifilm came forth with a beautifully rich film that had the high color saturation, superfine grain, and accuracy that came nearest to the best of what Kodachrome had to offer. Pros didn’t have to deal with the awful Ektachrome anymore and Fujifilm became a nearly instant bestseller and took over a large segment of the film market that Kodak had owned for decades. It should have served as a wake-up call to Kodak that they were vulnerable to outside companies taking over a market segment that Kodak thought was invincible. Fujifilm only got better, and during the decades of the 1980’s and 1990’s Fujifilm had the audacity to displace Kodak and their E-6 line of transparency films. Kodak’s response was too little, too late and Fujifilm’s sales skyrocketed.

2nd Nail: Disc film… hush, sweep it under the rug, quick

This is more minor, but worth mentioning. Kodak was experimenting with a new film format called Disc Film. Kodak was answering the call for even more compact cameras, and it needed a more compact film to make it work, which is why Disc cameras and film came on the scene. The photos were too grainy even under the best circumstances and it was eventually discontinued due to low sales. A number of other film companies also made disc film, but none of them really had any success with it. Disc film was notable however, because it reflected the consumer’s desire for more compact cameras that made good photos.

3rd Nail: The Polaroid debacle, oh no

In my opinion, Kodak made a mistake by using the Polaroid instant film technology without bothering to buy rights to their use. The courts agreed, and in 1986 Kodak had to discontinue the manufacture of their instant films because it was infringing upon Polaroid’s patents.  This was a significant third strike against Kodak in the 1980’s and photographers and consumers were starting to wonder if perhaps Kodak was losing an edge in the world of photography. Kodak was still a powerhouse though, and could have recovered easily from these setbacks, but a downward cascade was set in motion.

The digital repreive

The bright spot in the above was that Kodak was taking the lead with inventing digital technology that was to set the stage for the transition to digital photography. In this sense, Kodak was in fact playing the role of being a visionary company by imagining the future of photography. Kodak came forth with a flurry of inventions and new patents for digital photography, and also found themselves collaborating with a large number of new players in the emerging field of digital photography.

By the early 1990’s the desktop publishing revolution had taken off, and programs such as Photoshop quickly became industry leaders on the computer side of the equation, as did Apple computer for the desktop of choice for digital photographers. Kodak released their first consumer level digital cameras in the early 1990’s, but they were fairly expensive and the public still didn’t have the infrastructure to really use the digital photographs. It wasn’t until 1997 that Kodak was able to market a megapixel point and shoot digital camera for under $1,000.00, so digital photography for the general public still wasn’t a reality yet because they were too expensive for the average consumer (it was roughly $1,400.00 adjusted for inflation in 2012 dollars).

Kodak DC120 digital camera that was the $1,000.00 price buster in 1997. I know this camera well, because I purchased the model immediately previous to this one, but it was badged with the Chinon brand, the ES-3000.

In 1995 the ES-3000 was priced at $1,400.00, and since I was going to make digital photography my livelihood, I purchased one. It was large, awkward and generally clunky, but hey, it was digital! It made 1/3 of a megapixel photos and represented the first generation of digital cameras. As I recall, it sucked up a tremendous amount of battery power in just a few shots and you always had to carry a lot of extra batteries with you. It had a 38-115mm equivalent zoom lens and didn’t have an LCD screen.

Kodak also collaborated with companies such as Nikon to manufacture some of the first high-end digital cameras designed for professional use. Many of these cameras were hybrids between film camera bodies and digital components. Most were nearly twice as large as regular 35mm pro cameras and costed thousands of dollars, which put them out of the reach of average consumers. It meant that in the 1990’s, digital photography was still too expensive for the huge amateur market and film was still dominant.

This literally looked like someone took a Nikon film body and screwed on the Kodak digital components. It was 1.5 megabytes of pure digital power.

This was a curious time in Kodak’s life, because it was at the crossroads of two photographic technologies, film and digital. I suspect that it made for a number of fierce debates on their board, because on one hand they had their lucrative film products that was their mainstay for so long, and on the other, they had the newer digital technology to explore. I don’t know this for a fact, but suspect that there was an internal war where the digital group was a minority, and likely had to fight for every little bit of funding for their endeavors, and the film group was not convinced that the digital group deserved the funding it was requesting. At least this is what it looks like from the outside. I’d love it if someone were to do the research to learn how this inside conflict unfolded over the years up until just now, when Kodak had to declare Chapter 11 protection.

4th nail: Internal conflict of film vs digital technology

This is the murkiest part of Kodak’s downfall and is admittedly little more than pure speculation. It appears that there was an internal conflict going on with Kodak and they simply couldn’t agree on whether they were to be a film company or a digital company, so their decisions with both seem to have been compromised by each other, but who really knows? The board of directors knows, but I’m betting that none of them will ever admit as much. We only have clues to this assertion, and I’ll bring the Kodak DCS 14n forward as an example.

5th Nail: The abrupt shift to digital photography (oops)

Kodak was doing some very exciting things by the early 2000’s, including releasing a flurry of small point and shoot digital cameras that were very solid and just as good, if not better than their competitors.  All of a sudden, the market was flooded with tens, if not hundreds of digital cameras made by dozens of companies, including Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Minolta, Konica, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Agfa, Casio, Sigma, and so on. The digital revolution was in full swing and consumers could buy a digital camera for less than a few hundred dollars. The years between 2000 and 2003 were little more than a blur regarding digital cameras because the market was flooded with them nearly overnight. All of a sudden, consumers were buying more digital cameras than film cameras and companies like Kodak were caught totally unprepared for the abrupt change from film to digital photography. Nobody thought that it would happen in the course of just a couple years and companies were unprepared for the dramatic hits their film divisions would take as consumers stopped buying film and film cameras.

On the professional end of the market, both Nikon and Canon were releasing some very high quality digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLR’s) that were starting to eliminate the need for film among pros too. Canon broke a price barrier with their Canon EOS 300D, which made high quality DSLR’s available to pros and serious amateurs for less than $1,000.00 with a kit lens. The higher-end DSLR’s were still overly expensive with many near the $10,000.00 price range.

6th Nail: The Kodak DCS 14n (the elephant in the corner)

The Kodak DCS 14n caused quite the stir among pros, because for the fist time (you can’t count Contax because they never released their version) a sensor the size of a 35mm frame of film was released. This has come to be known as a “full frame sensor” because most of the DSLR sensors are smaller than this (it also meant that lens focal lengths were accurate measurements again and did not have a factor to measure as with smaller sensors). Canon was set to release their version of a full frame sensor too, but it costed $8,000.00, three thousand dollars more than this Kodak 14n.

Critics called it a medium format camera because it had the unprecedented size of 14 megapixels, more than twice the size of most DSLR’s. It was a huge leap and even now, nearly a decade later it is still considered a large image sensor.

The Kodak 14n became “a nail in their coffin” because Kodak did not allocate the proper amount of research and development resources to make it successful. There were many very negative deficiencies that held the 14n back from being successful. It had excessive noise even at moderately low ISO settings, which meant that the camera was only useful in bright sunlight or with studio lights. This frustrated pros because they wanted to believe in Kodak and their high-end 14n camera; everyone desperately wanted this camera to be a success, an answer to their digital challenges. By this time, photographers were already used to high quality results from DSLR’s and Kodak was expected to easily surpass the quality of the smaller megapixel DSLR cameras.

By early 2003 it became clear to nearly everyone that the 14n was a failure. It caused a sensationalist stir in the online photography community, because by now there were a number of review sites where users could publicly share their conclusions about the camera and users were very vocal about the 14n’s shortcomings. Rants were common from users, as were photographers coming to Kodak’s defense. Kodak eventually quietly abandoned the camera, never publicly conceding defeat with it.

The 14n could be viewed as a key pivotal point with Kodak, because they had the potential to take a decisive lead with this camera, and it could have been a flagship digital camera that set the standard for future cameras from all manufacturers. The view from professional photographers was that it appeared that Kodak was not willing to do what it took to make this camera a success. This saddened many, and exasperated the ones who invested in the 14n camera bodies and lenses. It irked them that Kodak would give up on this camera that held so much positive potential, and a rift was made between professional photographers and Kodak, and many of them turned their backs on Kodak for good.

Canon and Nikon have stepped up to take the lead with DSLR’s, and Kodak is obviously not even a player anymore. This is where so many photographers like myself are disappointed, because Kodak was so close to taking the lead a decade ago with this 14n camera. In my opinion, this entire scenario helped set a precedent for how Kodak was to approach their digital photography initiatives.

7th nail: Overproduction of digital cameras and the iPhone camera

Another element of the digital photography scenario (that Kodak obviously can’t control) is that there is a glut of digital cameras being mass produced by nearly everyone. There are literally hundreds of models being released every year, all striving to become the most recent bestseller. Many of the models are nearly identical to each other and after a certain point there appears to be a clear lack of real innovation. Sure, there are lots of very cool models being made, and I just got a new one about a year ago that I like a lot. It appears that a few companies are distinguishing themselves quite nicely with models that are ultra-compact, yet go into manual override easily so that you can have a very precise control over the look of your photographs. Some even have a certain “coolness factor” that also jumps into the fray, just to make things more interesting.

This sea of digital cameras nearly became moot when Apple released their iPhone with a digital camera a few years ago. It’s first incarnation was low resolution and couldn’t focus or adjust the brightness levels. It was a low quality camera, a joke to real photographers. However, what it did have was an easy method to share its photos, either via Wifi or over the mobile service. It was ridiculously easy to share photos and it coincided perfectly with the social networking sites like Facebook. For the first time, way more photos were being shared online than being printed. I hear that people on Facebook are sharing 4 million photos per day. This means that people are crazy about the iPhone and other cell phone cameras.

Apple makes some of the coolest computers on the planet, but I've never been all that excited about their iPhone camera. I notice it still doesn't have any lens protection, which means that it's photos will be soft in no time, due to a scratched up lens.

Hardly any of the camera manufacturers picked up on this Wifi trend, even as photographers asked for connectivity. Camera manufacturers ignored these requests for Wifi with digital cameras, and as a result, the digital camera bestseller is the one with this feature, the iPhone. I think that even today, most manufacturers still don’t get it. Kodak was a player in this scenario and could’ve come forth with a bestseller if they responded, but this is just my opinion.

At any rate, digital camera sales are still not nearly as high as they could be because of the widespread use of the iPhone. Apple has become a digital camera bestseller, even with their low quality camera, because they led the trend with digital connectivity and ease of use. Any photographer can tell you that the most popular camera is always going to be the one you can just pull out in a few seconds, and today that is the iPhone. My advice still stands for Kodak and all the other camera companies; if you want to have a bestseller, make it with built-in Wifi that is easier to use than the iPhone combined with a higher quality camera. Easy as pie, what are you waiting for?

Conclusion: Can Kodak make a comeback?

All of the above is what I meant by a “slow motion downfall,” because it appears to have been a downward cascade over a number of decades that slowly  eroded Kodak until it is at the place it is today. As a professional photographer, I still do not want to give up on Kodak, even as it seems more likely that it will be cannibalized into a number of smaller entities.

I think that the irony in all of this is that at least a part of Kodak realized that the digital revolution was coming and it was critical to take the lead with it. The sad part appears to be that the leadership didn’t heed the findings of their own research teams.

I’m not sure what to think about Kodak’s disappearance from photography, except that it is not good. As of this spring 2012 semester we and many other universities still have a film component to our photography curriculums. Next week I am evaluating the Kodak Tri-X film from our students and a part of me is wondering how much longer it will be around. A long time I hope.

Here’s to you Kodak, and like I mentioned in the first paragraph, Kodak essentially defined my profession and for that I will always be sincerely grateful.

KODAK LIVES!

Story and photos Copyright Larry McNeil 2012, All rights reserved.

My underground art in a secret place. Kodachrome Lives!

Today is April 15th, 2011 and Kodachrome was unleashed to the world on this date in 1935. Color became ultra-real overnight and photography was never the same. Here’s to you Kodachrome, you’ve been good to me, paid my mortgage bought me food, and enhanced my photography when I was a young pro. Bottom’s up, man.

Story & Photo Copyright Larry McNeil, 2011, All Rights Reserved

The past couple months have been occupied mostly with production work. I’m always a bit surprised at how labor intensive digital photography can be; I timed my Fellowship work so that a first wave of shooting could be done by early winter and I could spend the cold months holed up in my studio office doing the editing work on my computer. I kind of feel like the proverbial reclusive monk and am only missing the shaved head and robes.

One of the reasons I shot a few of these scenes with Kodachrome is that if you shot this with a digital camera, you'd get a lot of noise from the fog and the nuances of the feel of the winter fog would be minimized. Part of the global climate change project includes what could be perceived as mundane scenes of power lines. It's these seemingly ordinary scenes that we take for granted that is having a dramatic impact with changing our global climate.

From the Power Line series, which has to do with CO2 emissions and the global climate crisis. The other photos I'm working on right now are of coal fired power plants and the largest coal mine in North America in Wyoming. It's a sight to behold.

My biggest reality check with working on this Fellowship project is simply not teaching this semester. This is the first time that I haven’t taught for two consecutive semesters since 1991. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching  and even miss some of my students, but having the opportunity to work full-time on this Arts & Humanities Fellowship is pretty nice too.

This is the film from the Fuji TX Panoramic camera. It makes a photo that is twice as wide as a regular field of view.

I did a lot of the shooting in late fall and early winter. My most recent journey was to California to photograph power plants and wind farms in East Bay. I'd do the research on the power plants prior to my trips and map it out on Google Earth and plug all the coordinates into my GPS.

This GPS has been one of my best tools for this Fellowship project. Many of the sites I've visited were in obscure places that were challenging to find, and this GPS unit always took me directly to where I needed to go. I'm totally amazed at their accuracy.

I got this GPS in Aotearoa (New Zealand) two years ago when I was traveling the country via automobile. It did a splendid job of getting me around the country so I could concentrate on driving on the opposite side of the road and not have to navigate. It’s cool that these GPS units talk to you and tell you where to go so you don’t have to take your attention from the road. It has a most peculiar woman’s Australian accent and became a “She.” One of my stops in Aotearoa was at Massey University, where I spent a couple of days as a visiting artist. While having dinner with Robert Jahnke, the Head of the Maori Visual Arts Program, he suggested that perhaps it should be named “Matilda,” which is the name she now goes by.

At any rate, Matilda has been my guide on these Fellowship journeys, some of which were quite stormy and gloomy, which ironically enough, made for some excellent photographs.

This was my journey to Eastern Wyoming, where the largest coal mine in North America resides. It's run by the Peabody Company and it runs trainloads of coal around the clock, 24-7 to coal powered power plants all over America. It's quite the iconic place for the start of the 21st Century and the global climate crisis.

It was pouring rain most of the time, but I liked the look of the photos and appreciated tough cameras. This is one of my favorite digital cameras, the mighty Canon 5D MKII. It has a full-sized image sensor and shoots as fast as my pro film cameras. It kept right on shooting even though it got instantly drenched in just the few moments I was in the driving rain.

This has got to be my favorite camera ever. It's a Hasselblad medium format camera and I've used versions of it for over 30 years. It's still relevant in the digital age because of the impeccable negatives that are in turn scanned into the computer, so it's really a hybrid tool that crosses over to digital photography.

The cool part of the Hasselblad system is that it's likely the most modular camera system out there. I found this film back that is the "Moon Version" that was released to celebrate Hasselblad's contribution to the NASA Apollo missions. From a practical standpoint, I can tell at a glance that this is my film back that is loaded with infrared film.

Film processing is still fun; I'm splitting my work between digital photos and film. Each has its own distinct look and I like both for different feels conveyed. I don't have to pick one over the other and can take the best of what each has to offer. I really love the tactile nature of film and processing it by hand. In my opinion, it is important to turn off the computer and get away from the constant online buzz & image processing programs, and to give yourself quiet time to contemplate what's going on with not only your project, but with life in general.

Scanning negatives is definitely a high art, and I offer my thanks to the photo gods often... usually with coffee. This is a custom-made negative holder that holds the film flatter than the one that came with the scanner, which is so critical for sharply defined images.

Darth Scanner (play ominous soundtrack here). It's a workhorse of a scanner and does a fabulous job, especially with medium format negatives.

Part of the digital editing has to do with applying various filters to the photos. It's necessary because photos straight out of digital cameras are generally a bit soft and need to be sharpened, among other things.

Coal Fired Power Plant in MIchigan; the late afternoon light was surreal because the emissions put a thick haze in the atmosphere and the smokestack took on a gritty appearance. In my opinion, light is still what makes a photograph with an emotive punch; you don't have to intellectualize about a significant part of the meaning.

Over the winter I’ve been keeping busy with the production work involved with the project. Back in late December, the last rolls of Kodachrome were processed at the lab in Kansas, so I made sure I shot the last 21 rolls of Kodachrome as part of this project. I’ve got a fairly substantial backlog of work to do at the Research Park, where I have a very nice office with an awesome view of the mountains. I was just talking to a friend online about having an assistant. I told her that I actually need three; a minion, a henchman and a yes-man. But in reality, I like all of the aspects of the work, even the more mundane aspects like archiving the work, which can put you in a Zen-like state if done properly. Ommm. It can be very meditative, which is definitely a part of the creative process.

We can't talk about photography projects without mentioning coffee, now can we? I've got a new coffee maker, but it deserves it's own blog entry. I like coffee emissions much better than the CO2 ones on my journeys...

A sincere note of gratitude goes out to the Boise State University Arts and Humanities Institute and the Boise State University Division of Research for the Boise State University Arts and Humanities Fellowship, which grants faculty the opportunity to work on a fellowship project for a year (I am a Research Fellow for the 2010-2011 academic year).

Story & Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, All Rights Reserved, 2011

It occurred to me this morning that it seems a bit arbitrary to measure our journey around our home star on this day, January 1st. A new year. I like to think that every day is the start of a new year, but on the other hand I don’t have to worry much about astronomical details in my everyday life. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah was back in September. The Mayan new year starts in July, the sacred color is blue, and the idea of renewal rules the day. Each culture of the world has their own measurement system for years and seasons- what’s yours?

At any rate, most people on Earth note today as being the fist day of the new year of 2011 CE (Common Era). It seems that a commonality with humans and the measurement of time involves how long it takes to circle our star and nearly everyone embraces the idea of renewal, regardless of which cultural or celestial calendar they use.

In that dim blue light of renewal, my first act of the new day of the new year was to make a photograph. I walked out the back door and saw the crescent moon over the hill in our back yard. It was beautiful, and I shot off a number of frames.

My first photo of 2011, the view outside our back door in Idaho.

I shot this with my Canon 5D, a wonderful digital camera. I noticed that it had digital noise and found myself wishing for Kodachrome, which would have rendered this scene without any noise and offered rich colors and detail. Heavy sigh.

It was a beautiful sight and I stood there quietly until my camera started frosting over so I went inside to warm up. Happy new year, and run with the renewal thing. Where’s the coffee?

Kodachrome Fade to Black The life & times of the best color film in the universe

Larry McNeil’s last roll of Kodachrome. Himiona Grace provided the captivating guitar accompaniment. I know, a traitorous Fuji camera was used to shoot my last roll of Kodachrome. Sorry. But it’s only too perfect for Kodachrome, so there.

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I am a long-time photographer who has more than a technical attachment to Kodachrome. It was my livelihood for a couple decades, it paid the mortgage and made beautiful photographs that digital cameras could only dream about.

Kodachrome and my classic Leica M-6, a killer combination. One more hour to get your stuff to the lab, hustle on over, dudes (photo made with my iPhone camera).

A part of our photographic spectrum fades with the demise of Kodachrome today, December 30^th. Dang.

You had until noon today to jam your film on over to Dwayne’s lab in Kansas, the last place in the universe to process Kodachrome, which was discontinued by our friends at Kodak back in June of 2009. A phenomenal 75-year chapter in the history of photography fades to black.

Why was this film so enduring? We’re talking from 1935 to 2010, a seventy-five year run for a photography product, which was nearly unprecedented for any consumer item, let alone a film. When Kodak announced that Kodachrome was being discontinued in 2009, I dropped everything, logged on to the B&H Photo store and ordered around 40 rolls. It was a good thing too, because by that afternoon none was to be found. After that, the only place left to score Kodachrome was from a bunch of ebay pirates where they were going for twice the price. They saw Kodachrome as a commodity and kept real photographers from getting in on the last few precious rolls. Those bums.

McNeil Review for Kodachrome on the B&H Photo site

Kodachrome from the last batch Kodak made. How cool is that?

Brief History of Kodachrome & insight on why Kodachrome looks the way it does

If you were to sneak into my time machine, you’d have seen that back in 1935 Elvis arrived sans blue suede shoes, which was so fitting, because like Kodachrome, he got us all shook up and the paradigm shifted, like a force of nature. The Great Depression was still in full swing, German psychopaths were coming into power and darkness fell as they built up their war machinery, the first synthetic fiber was invented (nylon), cars were becoming more common and the world was generally in a modernist machine age with new electrical power plants being built for newfangled electrical appliances. There were still no interstate highways, and the most common mode of travel across the country was by train. Photography was popular with over 18 million people using cameras on a regular basis, so there was a ready market for a good color film, even in those tough times.

Kodachrome was targeted for the new miniature 35mm and 828 camera formats, such as the Leica, Contax, Retina and Bantam Special. Young radicals like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, André Kertész, Walker Evans, and later Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander and Sebastião Salgado were all avid Leica users who fully embraced shooting with small, unobtrusive cameras. Up until the 1950's, large 4x5" cameras ruled the day and were the cameras of choice for Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke-White, two of the best photographers from the 30's & 40's.

I think it’s cool that Kodak targeted specific cameras for their film, as you can see on the above Kodachrome box on the left. They were very excited about the prospect of various camera manufacturers releasing new miniature cameras that could optimize what the smaller film had to offer. Some of my last rolls of Kodachrome were shot with my own Contax and Leica cameras.

This is one of my oldest Leica cameras; I'm pretty sure it's either from the late 1920's or early 30's. It's one of the precision cameras that Kodak was hoping would be loaded with Kodachrome back in the mid-1930's.

This Kodak Bantam Special was likely the most expensive camera of it's day in the early 1940's. It took 828 film, which was smaller than 35mm film, which meant it could be even more miniaturized than the smallest 35mm cameras, even by today's standards. It's only about 3 inches wide. It has a very hip art deco design by Walter Teague and was a jewel of a camera with controls that are only usually found on very large professional cameras. It was perfect for Kodachrome, a match made in heaven (from the McNeil collection of vintage cameras).

Photography was being used by amateurs to make family mugshots and such, but they were in black & white. Color was much too sophisticated to both use and process for the generally clueless amateurs who didn’t want anything to do with messing around with chemicals, all they wanted were photos of the new baby, or other family events. Kodak targeted amateurs with small cameras loaded with Kodachrome. They envisioned everyday people with small cameras being able to easily make photos to share with friends and family. They hit the proverbial jackpot with how Kodachrome rendered scenes.

Unlike just about every other color film of the day, Kodachrome rendered colors with a rich palette and the world seemed to be enhanced rather than merely photographed. The switch from black & white to color was nothing less than revolutionary. Photography was already about realism, but Kodachrome rendered the world to an almost hyper-reality where colors were vibrant and subtle where need be, such as Adams’ blue sky, beat up red truck, and silver tanks in the photo below. With color photography the past seems more contemporary because of the realism conveyed, whereas black and white infers a moment in the past because of it’s monochromatic tones that replaces colors.

Ansel Adams was on the loose in an oil field with Kodachrome in 1945 and captured this scene.

Ansel Adams’ 4×5 Kodachrome photograph from 1945. Notice the code notches on the bottom left– code notches on sheet film were so that you could tell what film you were loading in complete darkness. Each film had a different code notch and it also allowed you to tell which side was the emulsion side by feel, because you were essentially blind while loading your film into the film holders. Photograph from the Fortune collection Kodachromes made by various photographers through the decades.

Kodachrome thrived throughout the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, which also coincided with the prime baby boom years. Magazines like National Geographic epitomized what Kodachrome had to offer popular culture; beautifully photographed scenes with rich colors and saturation with subtle detail. Kodachrome was the best color film available with no pretenders daring to step up to emulate it, let alone try something as audacious as dethroning it. During these decades, color dominated how photography was represented in popular culture, including not only consumer photography, but also commercial endeavors like publishing, advertising, films being made by the big Hollywood studios, and so on (many of the films were shot on negative film stock). The world was being reproduced in color.

These were the peak Kodachrome years with pros fully embracing it as the film of choice and amateurs buying millions of rolls of film annually. For an example, as a pro in the 1980’s I’d use well over 500 rolls a year, which was likely average for professional use. It was and still is one of the most archivally durable films made, and some Kodachrome film from the 1930’s still look as vibrant today as the day they were processed.

Robert Doisneau, 35mm Kodachrome, 1961. Doisneau was best known for his ironic black & white photographs, and this photograph from 40 years ago looks as though it could have been made this morning with a state of the art digital camera.

From a technical standpoint, Kodachrome was one of the most difficult films to process and you needed specialized equipment, a ready supply of Kodak chemicals with trained professionals keeping it humming properly. It has thinner layers of light sensitive emulsions that didn’t require dye couplers, which caused less light scattering, which resulted in noticeably sharper images. If you look at the emulsion side of the film, you can actually see the various physical layers that almost takes on the appearance of a tiny 3-D topographical map with hills and valleys; the images are in physical relief. This sometimes makes the image take on an almost 3-D appearance with real depth.

In this sense, Kodachrome does have three dimensions, height, width and depth. Even if the depth is only as thick as the film itself, it is a measurable thickness with variable contours, depending on what was photographed. This depth helped give the film a heightened sense of reality and a rarefied luminosity that was enhanced by the fact it was a positive film, and was commonly viewed on a light table or projected via a slide projector. It meant that this film was meant to be viewed with being lit from behind, which also meant that since the image was often projected upon a screen, it had to have rich colors so that they would not appear faded or diluted on the screen.

The tonal separation with Kodachrome was impeccable with razor sharp edges and subtle gradations of color, a characteristic that is extremely difficult to match with pixels and digital technology. A key difference between the Kodachrome film grain and digital pixels is that the film grain is much smaller than even the smallest pixels. This translates to a photographic image that has significantly finer and smaller details and is obviously digital noise free. One of the most blatant shortcomings with digital photography is the noise that appears when you photograph in either low-light or tricky lighting.

This means that digital photographers are generally required to do a notable amount of what is called postprocessing, or correcting the digital shortcomings on a computer after the photograph is made. Many photographers become virtual slaves to digital postprocessing, and ironically enough, many digital photographers love this aspect more than actually shooting photographs and spend most of their photography time in front of a computer instead of doing the actual photography. Go figure.

First Nails in the Kodachrome Coffin (How dare they!)

The first few nails in Kodachrome’s coffin had to be courtesy of our friends at Fuji film in the mid-1980’s. Up until now, E-6 film generally sucked with only average results. For the first time, a company made a beautiful E-6 positive film that could rival Kodachrome. There was a large swing over to Fuji film, because the processing was dramatically easier, cheaper and faster. You could get same-day processing and not have to wait a week to get your film back from the lab (since I lived on the West coast, mine went to the big Kodak lab in Palo Alto). I must confess that I shot a lot of Fuji film. Dang, sorry Kodachrome.

Darth Fujifilm was beguiling and sucked a lot of us pros over to the dark side.

A really cool thing was happening with 35mm film cameras at this time, however. They were going electronic, making exposures way more precise and auto-focus cameras were just over the horizon. The first 35mm camera to have an electronic chip was the Canon AE-1 in 1976, and the first pro camera to have an electronic chip was the mighty Canon F-1N in 1981. I know this because I switched to Canon from Nikon at this time. My Nikons were stolen and when I had to replace them, I learned that Nikon was not manufacturing any pro cameras with electronic components; their stance was that in order to be professional, everything had to be manual. In my opinion, this is why Canon stays a jump ahead of Nikon at any given time. Canon got the jump on Nikon back in the 1980’s and Nikon never really caught up.

Canon F-1N, the first pro camera to have an electronic chip, a forerunner to today's digital slr cameras. This was my favorite camera for years because of it's toughness and speed, way faster than my older Nikon F2's. Photo courtesy of the Canon Museum.

Second Round of Nails in the Coffin (Ouch)

The advent of the 1990’s saw the dawn of digital photography rising on the horizon. Desktop publishing got it going with Apple computers in conjunction with a number of digital image editing programs. Adobe Photoshop was one of many players, and has been the one that has dominated the digital photography scene up to today. Back in 1994 I was setting up a home darkroom with my enlarger of choice, a Chromega D5 XL. I had also recently set up a digital workstation for digital photography, having learned the basics at Kodak’s cutting edge Center for Creative Imaging in Maine in 1993. Kodak was taking the lead with digital technology and invested heavily.

I noticed that enlargers were selling inordinately cheaply and were the first photographic casualties of the digital revolution in the mid-1990’s. By 1996 I and most other photographers were still shooting primarily film, but the evolutionary change was that darkrooms were being eliminated with the advent of high quality film scanners being produced. The pro camera bodies of the mid-90’s were really hybrid film cameras with digital components nearly nailed to them, and costed upwards of $20,000.00 for marginal quality photos. These first digital slr’s were used mostly by large news organizations that could afford them, and the average pro photographers were still shooting film and scanning the photographs with more affordable scanners. At this time, scanned film made dramatically better photographs than images from even the best digital cameras, but the writing was on the wall about better digital cameras to come.

Chinon ES-3000. A Kodachrome killer? Not likely. I purchased my first digital camera in 1996, a Chinon version that was manufacturing cameras for both Kodak and Apple computer. It was the same model as the Kodak DC-50, or Apple QuickTake 150, and costed just over $1,000.00 retail. It had the stellar resolution of 640 x 480 pixels at around ISO 200 with an equivalent 38-114mm lens.

This was one of the typical digital slr's from the early 90's. It was really a digital back attached to a regular film camera, so it was kind of a hybrid. It was a 1.5 megapixel camera, and the 460 version was the highest resolution camera available in 1995 (6.2 megapixels) and could be picked up for a cool $35,000.00 ($50,250.00 in 2010 dollars). Kodachrome killers? Nope, not even close, but they showed a spark of what was to come in a few short years.

Third Round of Machine-gun Nails in the Kodachrome casket (Adding insult to injury- digital nails)

By the late 90’s and first half of the 2010 decade, amateur digital cameras were starting to become commonplace. They were way smaller than this clunky Chinon (that looked ridiculously like a pair of binoculars with one lens) and made dramatically better images. Autofocus was also commonplace by this time and this generation of digital cameras for amateurs were nearly totally automated, so all the user had to do was point and shoot, which is how the term was coined. It was as if George Eastman’s dream for photography from the 1880’s was finally realized. These new small digital cameras made fairly good photos, but were still only generally from 2-4 megapixels up until around 2000. They made nicely rendered 4×6 prints that could be made from places like Costco or Walmart. This is what finally caused the demise of not only Kodachrome, but nearly all amateur film and film cameras.

Why shoot with expensive and fussy film that doesn’t always work for amateurs if they can shoot digitally for less money and get more reliable results? This more than anything else is what doomed Kodachrome; it was the analog equivalent of a typewriter in the computer age. It was still very reliable, worked well and made beautiful images, but who cares? It is the same reason why we don’t use typewriters today, it simply doesn’t make much sense.

On the professional end of digital photography, high-end single lens reflex cameras were finally coming down in price to be affordable to the average pro and amateur enthusiast. The Digital SLR (DSLR) that finally broke the barrier to become a mass phenomenon was the Canon EOS 300D in 2003. It broke the $900.00 barrier with a kit lens and made beautifully rendered 6 megapixel photos. It was at this point that advanced amateurs and many pros gave up film almost entirely. Other manufacturers like Nikon released similar affordable high-end DSLR’s too, and the floodgates opened for digital photography.

Canon EOS 300D, the first DSLR that became a mega-seller and set the standard for mass produced inexpensive cameras.

The next thing to happen was that literally dozens of manufacturers were making high quality inexpensive digital cameras by the second half of the 2010 decade. Online computing was also becoming a phenomenon and amateur photographers essentially stopped making prints altogether and instead shared photos online via email, portfolio sites and finally social networking sites such as Facebook.

This cool little digital camera has over a million photos made on it since 2006 and is one of the generation of cameras that put some of the final nails into Kodachrome's coffin. Oops. Sorry.

Final ferocious flurry of nails in the Kodachrome coffin… Done in by phones? What the?

The final nail had to be cell phones with better quality built-in cameras. Some people are even forgoing their digital cameras and use their cell phone cameras most of the time. For an example, the iPhone has a 5 meagapixel camera that auto-focuses, makes decent photos, and as a bonus, can easily email and post photos right from the phone without having to bother with memory cards to plug into the computer. Not only is film nearly completely archaic, but so are a lot of other digital cameras.

The final nail in Kodachrome’s coffin. High quality cell phone cameras. And I use mine a lot. It makes better photos than my first digital camera from 1996 that costed over $1,000.00. Ok, so I don’t have the latest iPhone. Mine is an old beat-up one from the first generation, so I appropriated this ad and dropped in my own photo, making social commentary on consumerism and stuff.

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Part II

Us Kodachrome Die-hards

Some of us apparently never learn. We simply ignore what the other lemmings are doing and go our own way. There are a lot of us, judging from the fact that Dwayne’s photo was inundated with thousands upon thousands of rolls of Kodachrome this week and they unexpectedly had to run their processing machines around the clock to keep up with the demand.

As for myself, I shoot with a high-end Canon 5D, which is my meat ‘n potatoes camera. It’s rugged, fast and nearly as good as scanned film. Yes, you heard right, NEARLY AS GOOD AS SCANNED FILM. Film still has a dynamic range wider than most DSLR’s and sharper detail too. This means that if you’re a photographer with a specialized project that requires images better than what DSLR’s can make, you still need to shoot film. On the other hand, your own Canon 5D may serve all of your needs and more, and you may never need to bother with pesky film again, so just go with the flow, man.

I have an Arts and Humanities Fellowship that I’m working on that requires both digital and film photography. It’s titled Global Climate Crisis and I’ve been shooting with both a Contax G2 system and a Fuji TX-1 wide-field camera that shoots wide panoramic photos and I’m having fun with all of it.

The Contax G2 system uses the classic 45, 90 and 28mm prime lenses to optimize image quality even more. Prime lenses are non-zoom versions. Zoom lenses compromise image sharpness for ease of use, even as high-end pro zooms are improving. Couple this philosophy of impeccable photographic craft with something like a Kodachrome film emulsion and you end up with very high quality photographs, often better than what can be made with pro DSLR's (this film was a gift from a former student, Ross Knapper, who was familiar with my project). These are prime time lenses for us photographic purists; I guess pretenders are ok too, just leave the chintzy glass at the door. I guess this kind of makes my taste in gear a bit on the aristocratic side; I'm spoiled by stuff like Schneider and Carl Zeiss optics. Sorry. When it all gets to be a bit much, I just go shoot with my iPhone for a while, as evidenced by this very photo.

Fuji TX-1 Panoramic camera from the video at the top; this is cool, because it's really a medium format camera that shoots 35mm film. I was looking for a camera that would maximize the Kodachrome quality, so what better way than to shoot a frame of film that is twice as wide as a regular frame? I cheat often and with verve. Don't tell anyone. This is the same camera as the Hasselblad XPan by the way, it just has a different badge.

This is a chart that shows various film sizes relative to each other. As you can see, the Xpan (TX-1) is nearly as wide as a 6 x 7 cm negative size, and just a bit wider than a 6 x 6 cm (or 2 ¼" negative size). I love to take up lots of real estate with my film. I'm not cheap with it.

This is how the film looks from the lab & it's twice as wide as a regular 35mm frame. These are photos from glaciers in Alaska.

When you scan in big negatives, you need to use anti-Newton glass to hold the film flat, or you'll be most sincerely sorry. Take my word.

Scanning Kodachrome is always a challenge, especially these double wide frames of 35mm film. I special ordered some anti-newton glass that works great. Sir Isaac Newton discovered that if you put a fig newton cookie on glass it causes unsightly rings. Wait a minute, that’s not right. He discovered that if two sheets of glass are pressed together, you can see concentric colored rings in the glass. The rings appear because there is a small amount of air between the glass and light waves encounter interference. The anti-newton glass is slightly roughened, which simply prevents the rings from forming. This is one of the most common problems with scanning film. Be sure to have canned air to blow away all those cookie crumbs.

Sh Kahaadí Kutí, It's crazy weather, 2010, Digital Print, 23"w x 8.5" I thought that a gas mask was perfect because the air is so nasty around the coal fired power plants. I felt bad for the people who have to live on the same planet as all this junk. Hey, wait a minute... This is one of the largest coal fired power plants in the midwest. From the series on the Global Climate Crisis.

By the way, I never cared for Paul Simon’s Pop Kodachrome song. It seems too whiney and shallow, nearly delivered with a whimper, not befitting anything as subtle or sophisticated as Kodachrome. If it were to have a theme song, I’d pick something with vibrancy and verve, like Gato Barbieri’s Encuentros, or if from mainstream Pop, the Door’s Light My Fire. Screw that milquetoast stuff, pass the passion, deliver it with heat, man.

Dwayne's Kodachrome Tee

That's all folks. Well, nearly. I've still got 21 rolls of processed Kodachrome coming in the mail!

Da-ka-xeen Mehner  and I have interesting stories to tell. I think that our stories are very compelling and are about how to navigate the challenges we all encounter along the way. It’s not so much about what happens, but how we all respond to the quirks we encounter. Life is certainly not predictable.

Da-ka and I flew in on Keet Air*, naturally.

I would put forth the case that life is bewildering at best and illogically paradoxical at worst. Doesn’t it seem that some of the things that happen in the world defy logic? Commander Spock would be totally appalled and order that he beamed back forthwith. It seems that we don’t have that luxury, so we’ve just got to deal with it.

This is where things get interesting, because artists enter the fray and offer their take on what’s going on. I like it that artists offer their interpretations of what’s going on with the universe, because sometimes they’re their take on things are right on target, and it isn’t always so much about what is examined, as it is the visual manifestation of how they relate whatever is is that they’ve learned or experienced. This sometimes translates to images that speak to your life force instead of your intellect. In my opinion, it is what we artists do best.

Sometimes when I’m teaching I finish a session by asking if anyone has any questions about anything. If they’re all quiet I say “Nothing? What about the meaning of life? Any takers?” Some of them smile, and I tell them that it’s kind of a one-liner, kind of not, because if they get exceptionally well at what they’re doing, insightfully examining  life is exactly what they’ll be doing with their art too.

I feel good about this exhibition and presentation for a few reasons. 1) It is at the C.N. Gorman Musuem, a place unique in the universe of museums in the world, run by Hulleah Tsihnahjinnie and Veronica Passalacqua. Sure, it’s small, but it also offers viewers unique voices in the world of art. Please make this a regular stop when you’re in the area. 2.) It is a two person exhibition with Da-ka-xeen Mehner and myself. We are connected by blood in the most direct manner possible in our Northwest tribe; you will witness what it means today in our contemporary world, especially in the midst of everything that is going on at this moment. Because you are experiencing a lot of these events yourself, it is relevant to you, regardless of your cultural background. 3). I am in the midst of making new work, and I hardly ever do exhibitions while in the middle of new work. I usually let the work “settle” a bit especially as new ones are constantly added. It’s kind of a sneak preview of things over the horizon.

As a side note, I understand that the first game of the world series is on the same evening we’re doing our talk. Wouldn’t you know it? We do everything we can to plan for a good schedule, but something unexpected invariably intrudes on our plans. Record the game, have fun with it later and have fun with us in person. I hope to see you there.

*Keet Air is an inside joke, because Keet translates to Killer Whale, and we’re both men of the Killer Whale Fin House, which is what the wing kind of looks like. Da-ka’s son is also named Keet.

You are cordially invited, Wednesday, October 27th 6:00pm at the C.N. Gorman Museum.

Here is a link to place, map & time: C.N.Gorman Museum

I am very pleased and honored to be in a special exhibition with my nephew Da-ka-xeen Mehner at the C.N. Gorman Museum at the UC Davis campus near Sacramento. Da-ka-xeen and I were invited by their Director, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and Curator Veronica Passalacqua to have a two-person exhibition, opening today.

Early this spring we were brainstorming about  a title and I kept going back to our Uncle-Nephew connection, which is very special amongst our Tlingit customs. We all agreed that it should be Dakl’aweidi Kéet Gooshi Hít, Du Kaak, Keilk – Yee Wduwa eex’. In Tlingit it means Killer Whale Fin House, Uncle, Nephew – You are Invited.

As is with our formal time-honored custom, when introducing ourselves, we identify our House (hít) first, so people will know where we and our people are from. It is the Kéet Gooshi Hít, or Killer Whale Fin House in Klukwan, Alaska. It is one of the oldest clan houses on the entire Northwest Coast. It is where a lot of carvers go to see how Tlingit carving was done in ancient times, and some carvers have even called our clan houses in Klukwan The Cathedrals, because they have some of the oldest and most beautiful carvings in the Northwest. We are very proud that they are not in museums, and are a vital part of the living community.

Da-ka-xeen is an art professor, artist and photographer, who also happens to be my nephew. I cannot tell you how pleased this makes me, because Da-ka and I have been close since he was born. I can remember when he first went off to Art School at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and how remarkably well he did there. He blossomed with his art and it was clear that he was in just the right place. It was gratifying to see that he had an entire community of fellow artists to learn and make art with. I was gratified again to see that he was so exceptionally gifted not only with photography, but with sculptural and installation work too. Da-ka has taken off with his career since then and his curriculum vitae is jam packed with exhibitions and awards. He is also an Art Professor and the new Director of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Native Arts Center.

Da-ka-xeen

I think that perhaps what connects us in addition to our family lineage, is our approach to art. It is a no-holds barred, no holding back wrestling match with life. So life gives us a hearty body slam? Well, we give one right back, only we use our art as our method of expression. You, the viewer can tell us how well we’ve done in this match. I’m never quite sure how well I’ve scored, all I really know is that there is always more art to be made. I have new works from my Global Climate Crisis Fellowship included, and both of us have been shooting Kodachrome in homage to its eminent demise later this year. I have not yet had the opportunity to see Da-ka-xeen’s new work, so some of you will have the privilege to see it before me.

Please join the C.N. Gorman Museum in welcoming this new art to the world. Da-ka-xeen and I are going to be at the museum sometime in mid-October to give our talks, so stay tuned!

Da-ka-xeen Mehner Website

C.N. Gorman Museum

If you were a musician and knew this was your last performance, what would you play? Would you make it your most magnificent and heartfelt gig, one for the ages? Or if you were an author writing your last page? Would you make your words blend with the stars up above, leaving your readers a bit stupefied with the poetic mystery of what they just experienced?

As a photographer, I feel a bit like those guys because so many of our usual photographic supplies and tools are being zapped from existence, casualties of the digital insurrection. Including the reality that Kodak discontinued the ever-venerable Kodachrome in 2009. Part of me wants to rally the troops and blast those punks back to last week, leaving the future of photography to us photographers, thank you. Then I realized that I’ve been teaching digital photography since the mid-90’s and helped lead the way with establishing digital photography as an accepted art form when galleries were still rejecting it as a crass pretender. The enemy turned out to be myself. Homer said it best: Doh. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny,  a real contender for a Greek tragedy, replete with a self-made paradox. In the end I guess I’d have to agree with Steve McCurry, the famous National Geographic photographer (who’s shot thousands of rolls of Kodachrome over the decades) who said change is good.

Ok, so change is good; get a roll and shoot it anyway, just because.

This leaves two obvious choices. Number one, we can find a quiet place in the forest and ponder its glory and perhaps even heave a heavy sigh or two; maybe even say dang to the heavens, just in case anyone is listening. A hearty glass of fine tequila would be good to accompany this foray. Or even better, get yourself at least one roll of Kodachrome and shoot something fun and maybe even memorable, kind of like what McCurry is doing. Just make sure you get it processed at Dwayne’s in Kansas, by December.

50 Reviews. Except for an uppity one. What?

My nephew Da-ka-xeen Mehner and I are having an exhibition opening in late September at the C.N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis. We’re both shooting Kodachrome in conjunction with our regular work in homage to the film. Kodachrome has above average contrast, extreme fine grain, excellent color accuracy and saturation. Not to mention the most archivally durable film ever made. It’s one of those rare films that is good at nearly everything, from great skin tones to the widest variety of landscapes.

Last August, B&H sent me an email requesting a review of my recent Kodachrome purchase and I happily complied. For some reason, they didn’t use it. Dang.

B&H Photo didn't use my review for some reason. What gives? I thought it was quite accurate.

An Indigenous Encounter with Kodachrome

Ok ok, digital photography is really cool. I admit it. Heck, I’ve even helped set up digital photography curriculums at an art school, a university, taught it at a third, and have taught it since before it was accepted as real photography, so I guess I know my digital photo stuff.

BUT. Like I tell my own digital photo students, if you want to learn color, you’ve got to shoot Kodachrome. Why? Because it was the best color film ever made, period. Just take my word for it for now.

KODACHROME!

Photography is magical at its core, which is why people have been hypnotized by it since its inception. Photography historians like Beaumont Newhall (I still have copies of correspondence with him from the 70’s regarding attending the UNM MFA Photo program), Geoffrey Batchen, Veronica Passalacqua, and even our very own Dr. Henrietta Lidchi and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (with their Visual Currencies, Reflections in Native Photography book) write wonderful and insightful books all about its history, but there is nothing like experiencing it first-hand and looking at it with wonderment and being left with only one word. Magic. Kodachrome is definitely magical. Part of me doesn’t really care about the technical information, all I want to do is capture images with some of that magic intact.

Which brings me to my own Kodachrome film that I shot in the Midwest recently. When we came back to Idaho, it was hot as in H-A-W-T-E-R than heck. Like Superman and Kryptonite, Kodachrome has a weakness, which is heat. It makes it lose it’s vibrancy and the magic fades into mediocrity, especially after it has been exposed, but not yet processed.

Heat can put a damper on the Kodachrome magic, so hold back, man (NASA Photo).

This had me worried, because I needed to get it shipped off to Kansas for processing, via a courier. In the heat, in the back of some delivery truck at 100+ degrees. My only recourse was to ship it overnight to minimize its exposure to heat. I put the exposed film in need of processing on my desk for a few days to think about it. Dang.

The clouds looked beautiful, kind of like Santa Fe summer clouds, which made me wonder if rain and lighting may be over the horizon.

At any rate, I shipped the film on Monday, and said my holy smackers with sincerity. What luck! The photo gods had mercy on me and the heat broke; instead of our regular 100º, it is a cool high 70’s. Wow! This was a huge deal for me and my film. My film was being shipped in relative coolness instead of the blistering heat, and I am more than thankful.

It means that with any luck, I’ll get my film back with the magic intact, but we’ll see.

I must confess that I almost did a bit of an improvised rain dance in the shower just before the heat broke. I think that perhaps the creator wasn’t that amused and our entire house shook from the lightning. The entire night landscape was lit up for a moment as I went to grab my camera to try and get a shot of it.

The hills behind our house were lit up from bolts of lightning that night. This was pitch blackness with illumination from flashes of lightning behind the clouds.

In reality, I don’t know what to make of all this. It’s usually blistering hot right now, the hottest time of year here. I just hope that the film gets back soon, and looks good. In the meantime, not even a thought of rain dances in the shower.