Kodachrome

I came to Kodachrome during its declining days, when there was only one lab in the world that could process it. Each roll of the film came with a small, folded-up, postage-paid envelope bearing a Swiss address. Having exposed the film, one put it in the envelope and mailed it to the Kodak office in Vevey, from where it would be forwarded with a batch of others to Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. The film was quite expensive to buy, as the cost of development and postage was factored into the unit price.

Dwayne’s would process the film, and, if the requisite box had been ticked, they would mount it in cardboard slides. Batches of processed slides from European photographers would be returned to Switzerland; and from there back to their points of origin. The whole tortuous process worked surprisingly well, and would typically take no more than a few weeks. I shot ten rolls of the stuff between the summer of 2008 and the autumn of 2010. Production of the film had ceased in 2009, and Dwayne’s shut down their K-14 development machine in January 2011.

By whatever photochemical sorcery, its beautifully vivid colours somehow seemed truer to memory than reality. Even though my acquaintance with it was brief, I’m glad I had the opportunity to try it for myself.