The end of an Era, 74 years of Kodacrome comes to an end.

I guess it had to happen,

"KODACHROME Discontinuation:

Eastman Kodak Company announced on June 22, 2009 that it will discontinue sales of KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. Sales of KODACHROME, which became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other films or digital capture. Today, KODACHROME represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films. Despite all its outstanding features, KODACHROME involves a highly complex development process that led photographers to experiment with and adopt newer KODAK films that deliver outstanding color images through a simpler workflow. Although KODACHROME has very distinct characteristics and no film will give the exact same results, current users are encouraged to try other Kodak films. Kodak continues to bring innovative new film products to market, having released seven new professional films -- over the last three years alone. "

Kodachrome was part of my youth, as soon as I had a second SLR body I kept it loaded with K64. Thanks to my finances I never shot more than 150 rolls over a decade or so, but I always had some around.

I remember being at a slideshow at a friends house, and staring in awe at the quality and brilliance of slides shot on the old K10 between 1940 and 1960 or so, they looked like they came straight out of the old Findlay processing lab. They were rich, completely lifelike and, well perfect. Kodachrome was archival, it rendered color perfectly, it was the photographers film, in nearly every genre of photography there is an active, vocal sect of K-chrome fans.

But in many ways it was a difficult product to deal with, it's expensive to make, expensive to process and Kodak didn't keep it up with the times, Findlay closed, and one by one so did all the other Kodak labs. Now only one little independent lab still deals with it, and this week, the great yellow father finally pulled the plug on Kodachrome.

Rest well my friend.