What is Kodachrome?

The last few blog posts have referenced a type of photographic process called Kodachrome. So if you're wondering what it is then hopefully this post will explain it in a little more detail.

"Kodachrome is a type of color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful colour materials and was used for both cinematography and stills photography. Because of its complex processing requirements, the film was sold process-paid until 1954 in the United States where a legal ruling prohibited this. Elsewhere, this arrangement continued. Kodachrome was the subject of a Paul Simon song and a US state park was named after it. For many years it was used for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media. Because of the uptake of alternative photographic materials, its complex processing and the widespread transition to digital photography, Kodachrome lost its market share, its manufacture was discontinued in 2009 and film processing ended in 2010."

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome

Kodachrome is pretty much a way of making photography from before my time, and I am sad that I will never get to truly experience making and taking photographs using this prestigious process. But alas, sometimes things have to come to an end - I'm one of the "digital generation" and will probably end up using this as my main medium, but we should never forget our roots and our history.

Thousands of Kodachrome positive slides have been produced over the years and each one has a little bit of history hidden within it. I would love to create something that is able to tap into these memories and express them a little better than have been in the past.

Jacki Vance-Kuss

Jacki Vance-Kuss is a Fibre Artist from Ohio, in the United States Of America. She has a very strong passion for more traditional film photography rather than the newer digital way of taking photographs. She often collects old negatives and slides from multiple sources and recycles them to create stunning prints, other artistic creations and pieces. Her blog can be found here:


http://www.craftbangboom.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yarnzombie/

"This is a print from one of the negatives of the Paris/WWII lot I bought up in Cleveland. The negs were a weird size - bigger than 3x4, smaller than 4x5, but I managed to make them work in the enlarger. I printed the pics onto Arista Classic white Matte paper, grade #3. The paper dates back to around the mid-70s, most likely, but it still prints great. The paper gets curly, though."


She uses her blog to showcase her interest in different photographic techniques and experiments. She experiments with using old negatives and paper to create prints today, to see how age has affected the materials and how they have worn away - if they have at all. Her work is very interesting and visually stimulating because of the way that she has no control over what she has already embedded within the negative. The fact that she is only able to print the pictures is a limitation in itself but also enables good boundaries for her creativity and technical creation. She also shoots photographs however, but she is a scavenger/printer at heart. 


One piece of work in particular that caught my eye was the way she recycled old Kodachrome slides to create actual objects such as curtains or a lamp shade. This idea of using a photographic negative in a more literal sense appeals to me as it shows a way of using photographs that have long since become obsolete, unimportant, neglected or forgotten as a way of telling stories from the past and showing the memories embedded within. These photographs that were once wasted and unused, now have a purpose once more and are able to be viewed in keeping with their original purpose.

"Here's the finished curtains I made out of Kodachrome slides! The slides date from the 50s and early 60s, and are all from a lot of slides I got in Kansas City last fall. The majority of slides on the right panel are of horses. Go figure. Travis drilled 8 holes in the slides using a Dremel tool in a Dremel drill press thingy, and I connected them all using aluminium chainmail rings."

These old Kodachrome slides have been joined together with metal links to create a pair of curtains, they are flexible and actually very good at their function and look amazing. Jacki has made excellent use of exterior light found outside the door's window - it is a natural light-box in full effect.

I would very much like to create something similar to this for my "waste/commission" unit as I think that it is a very interesting way of reusing old photographs and giving them a purpose again.