Thursday, December 30, 2010

Mama They Took My Kodachrome Away

Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon.  And there went Kodachrome, the end of an era.  I read yesterday [Scripps Howard News Service] Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kan., the last photo film processing lab in the world that processes the famed color film Kodachrome, is discontinuing that service at the end of the year - in 2 days.  So, after 75 years, all that will be left of Kodachrome is the Paul Simon song and a state park named after it in Utah.  The Eastman Kodak Co. discontinued making the iconic film in June 2009.  Unlike other color film, Kodachrome starts as black-and-white film and the color dyes are added in the lab, like printmaking, which is why one cannot develop it in a home lab.  “It’s the most complicated film there is to process,” says Todd Gustavson, a curator at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y.  Dwayne’s in Kansas is the last licensed processor, and doing 700 rolls a day, twice its average, but that’s not enough demand to convince Kodak to make more chemicals used to process the film.  First introduced in 1935, Kodachrome film was the first commercially successful color film.  “It had a color saturation that is unmatched with any other slide film or with digital,” says Lou Dematteis, a San Francisco freelance photojournalist.  

    Now back to my own words; this record was made at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.  It is Paul's second solo album, released in 1973, and it was produced by Phil Ramone.  The cover was designed by Milton Glaser.  Rick Marotta has a drumming credit on the song Tenderness.

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