The Kwaj Kat Blog

Seems like a lot of my recent posts have been about lost icons from the Kwaj era, and I guess it’s inevitable that some things pass into history as we move steadily into the future. In reading the July 6 edition of Time magazine I was reminded of yet another passing that I’m sorry to see that again directly ties to my time on Kwaj. After 74 years, Kodak has finally retired Kodachrome.

Even the most casual visitor to the Kwaj Kat website will note that I’m a big fan of photography, although not necessarily the best at the trade. As mentioned in previous posts, my photographic background began during the Kwaj years with my introduction to 35mm photography. Now I’ll be the first to say that I’ve fully and enthusiastically embraced the digital age, and digital photography is no exception. I truly love my digital camera and use it regularly, even more so than any other camera I’ve owned since digital photography is CHEAP, but in those days we lived completely in a film world. As you’ll note from the photo gallery, much of my Kwaj photography took the form of black-and-white after my parents introduced me to the joys of developing my own pictures at the photo lab inside Special Services. Plus, that was the cheapest option since we bought both the film and paper in bulk and loaded our own reusable film canisters at the photo lab. However, I’d occasionally splurge and use color film, but that was sent off for processing since developing color prints at the lab was difficult and time-consuming. I think my dad did a little of that during our time on Kwaj, but it was never practical for us to do much of it so we all stuck to black-and-white. Nowadays, of course, the photo lab resides on a computer and is called Photoshop.

For really special stuff like vacations when we wanted the absolute best color images possible, we opted for the trusty Kodachrome slide film. My dad taught me during the Kwaj years that slide film, especially Kodachrome, produced richer, more vibrant colors than typical color print film, so we used it exclusively to photograph events and activities that called for the best. I have an assortment of Kwaj photos on slides that I plan to convert to digital format sometime soon and add to the online gallery, and many of those will wind up being the best-looking images I have from those days simply due to the film quality.

In truth, I’ve not taken any slides since a big family vacation we took with our kids in 1998 so the demise of Kodachrome isn’t going to directly impact my daily life. Nevertheless, I’m sad to see it go since I hate losing anything that brought me so much fun and satisfaction. I felt the same way about Heathkit going out of business even though I had no plans to build one of their electronic projects, but I remember the days when my dad built two different TVs that we used for years as our primary sets. I’m also reminded of the fact that people now rely on cell phones for communication and emergency assistance while driving, not a CB. Of course I’m reliant on and embrace cell phones just like everyone else nowadays, but I often lament the passing of a golden era when a different technology was in vogue, one that I garnered a lot of joy from and that I still miss.

So, I’ll offer my sincere goodbye to a beloved photographic medium whose legacy still resides in my boxed collection of yesteryear memories and will not be forgotten in my lifetime, although my children will neither care nor understand what all the fuss was about with tiny little pictures encased in a white square cardboard frame. But despite Simon and Garfunkel’s earnest plea, my Kodachrome has been taken away.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Current Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.