Photo industry mourns Kodak

2012-01-20 10:43
A file picture shows empty film rolls before recycling at a kodak laboratory in Vitrolles, France. (Gerad Julien, AFP)




While Kodak could still recover after court-supervised restructuring and selling off assets, the company that did more to popularise photography in the 20th century than any other is unlikely to claw back the ground taken over by digital cameras and memory sticks.

From the simplicity of its Brownie cameras to the brilliant colours of its Kodachrome film, Kodak was a constant presence in the lives of three generations of amateur and professional photographers around the world.




Preserving memories





In 1932, the year a depressed Eastman killed himself, the company began selling the first filmstock for amateur movie makers. It also developed home 8mm movie projectors, all of which gave way to the Super 8 movie technology of the 1960s.

And "Kodak Moment" - the company's advertising catchphrase for its film - became embedded deep in the US vernacular.


At its height in the 1980s, the company had 145 000 workers, and was seen as the Apple or Google of its day, a leading innovator able to attract the most creative scientists to become.


Kodak also furnished the film for countless Hollywood movies, including 80 Oscar-winning "Best Pictures", and it won nine Academy Awards of its own for scientific and technical excellence, according to the company website.

But when digital cameras began to appear in the mid-1990s, the company - which had already years earlier developed its own digital technology - was unprepared and lost the market to more nimble Asian producers.


It was an ominous sign last year when the company stopped producing its Kodachrome film, long the standard of quality for photographers.

For many, it was like losing a limb.

Forced change

"Photographers developed a type of seeing depending on the kind of film they're using. So, if you're a colour shooter and you've been working on Kodachrome for 30 years, you see on Kodachrome," said Karen Probasco, editorial account manager in New York for the renowned photo agency Magnum.


Read more on:    kodak  |  us


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