procrastinationatitsfinest:

Top photographer recalls Kodak’s fading moment

The news that Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday saddened many, including (and maybe especially) the photographers who relied on the company’s products for more than a century to record images both mundane and historic.

Almost anyone who shot a photo prior to the advent of digital photography has used Kodak film.

Professional photographers relied on the brand from the early 1900s until the 1980s, when the company that invented the hand-held camera and rollup film began to lose market share to foreign producers. Cameras, lenses, film, photographic paper and other artifacts — cherished by photographers and collectors — remain as reminders of the company’s contribution to the art of taking pictures.

Mick Cochran, former director of photography for USA Today, spoke with msnbc.com about stumbling across his own Kodak keepsakes.

Rummaging through a canvas bag inside his Rhode Island home, Cochran found an old film canister from the 1950s.

“Oh wow,” he said admiring the well-worn item. “Look at that, you see the texture? The Kodak just pops. It’s the coolest thing.”

Photographers admittedly get a bit wistful when looking back at shooting and processing film, even though they enjoy the ease of digital photography, which Kodak invented but ironically never exploited.

“Anytime you could find someone to process your film, you would do it. Nobody wanted to be in the darkroom with all those chemicals. It was a right of passage, it was messy,” Cochran said.

“It was such an arduous thing we did. Digital came around and it was so much better and faster,” he said.