In 1935, George Eastman’s Kodak company introduced a color photograph film called Kodachrome. For entire generations, Kodachrome was the only color film that they knew, and at one point there were 25 labs processing film around the world. That’s before the day of digital cameras. Since then, color film has been on the decline. One by one, the processing labs closed. Kodak ended production of Kodachrome processing chemicals in 2009. Now, the last rolls of Kodachrome film to be developed will be processed by Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas.
Kodachrome is going by the wayside. For a lot of photographers, it’s still one of the best-looking, brightest-color film prints available, and that includes digital. After all, nobody’s going to record a hit song and call it “Digital Camera.” Fittingly, Dwayne’s Photo owner Dwayne Steinle will have the last roll to get processed sometime today. Until then, people are making pilgrimages from around the world to tiny Parsons, on the Oklahoma-Kansas border, to get the last of their 35mm film developed.
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