Kodachrome Story Revisited as Kodak Reportedly Poised for Bankruptcy

The company that invented the first digital camera, in 1975, is poised for bankruptcy, according to a Wall Street Journal report on the fate of Kodak, the 131-year-old photography company.

ArtsPost, which covers “cultural news as seen by the Washington Post’s arts writers and critics,” referred to that report in its Jan. 5 posting, which focused on photographers “preparing for the likely death of the company that has been an anchor of their vocation for their entire lives — though none of them appears surprised.”

This brings to mind a Brandon Patch posting in December 2010, shortly after we launched, in which we discussed the closing of the last studio in the world still processing the iconic Kodachrome film.

That interview, with veteran Brandon photographer Ed Booth — who since then has celebrated his 50^th year as a professional photographer — is especially timely in light of the news about Kodak from the business world today.

The article, , is reprinted below. We invite additional reflections in the comment box below.

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The year was 1979 and Ed Booth was in Yosemite Park when he last shot with Kodachrome, the 35mm film immortalized in song that on Dec. 30 reached the end of the line with the closing of the last photography studio in the world that still processed the iconic film.

"It's just another part of our industry going by the wayside, just like film and film cameras," said Booth, whose studio in Brandon is run in conjunction with Betty Huth, who has been working with him for 21 of his almost 50 years in the business.

"Kodachrome was probably one of the best commercial and nature photography films ever made," Booth said. "The colors were very saturated. That's the best way to put it."

Paul Simon put it more poetically, in his 1973 song, "Kodacrhome," in which he sings, "you gave us those nice bright colors, you give us the greens of summer, makes you think all the world's a sunny day."

Yet it wasn't, as Simon in his song feared, mama who took our Kodachrome away; it was the times we live in that led to the end of the line, with the closing Dec. 30 of Dwayne's Photo in Kansas.

With incredible advancements in digital technology and image editing technology, coupled with a crippling economy that has forced so many industries to rethink their business plans and product lines to remain relevant, Kodak's Kodachrome film is just a blip on the radar of things we've come to love and lost.

"Most people know Kodachrome from that song (by Paul Simon), and they know it from the National Geographic magazine, which was one of the largest users of Kodachrome," Booth said.

Today, he added, the novice and not- so-novice photographer can drag a photo to the desktop, open it in Photoshop and manipulate the hue- and-saturation levels.

"That was Kodachrome," he said, as he illustrated the point with an image of trees with that first posted on Brandon Patch on Dec. 25. "With a slider in Photoshop you can now get Kodachrome."

Of course, there's a bit more to it, to get the professional-looking photographs that trained and experienced photographers bring to the task from shoot to finish. But in today's trying economic times "good enough" is a hard answer to overcome when money is tight enough to pay the household bills.

"Seventy percent of our industry nationwide is gone, never to come back," Booth said, about his studio's former emphasis on classical portraiture. "When you ask, 'Why didn't you hire a photographer?' The number one comment we hear over any other is, 'It's good enough.'  We know from a professional standpoint it's not good enough. But the economy affects everybody. If you can do it yourself or pay a photographer, which are you going to do? You're going to do it yourself."

Notwithstanding, Booth is thankful digital technology came along. "It puts fun back into photography," he said. "I've never enjoyed it more than I am right now, because of digital technology."

Booth remembers the first time he picked up a camera. Age nine, with his dad, at the Grand Canyon. "I saw a deer and took a picture of the deer with my dad's camera and I was hooked from that day on," he said.

As Booth put it: "I've been earning 100 percent of my income from photography for 49 years, since June 1962."

His first job out of college and in photography was with the oldest studio in San Diego, founded in 1947 and still in operation today under its third owner and Booth's mentor, Mike Armbrust. About 10 years later, Booth opened his own studio, Welsey Photography, also in San Diego. He stayed there for about 20 years then moved to San Jose to help Huth with her studio there. The two had met on a safari in Africa, in October 1989, and from that moment on helped each other with large-wedding jobs.

"Her husband retired and wanted to move to Florida, where the economy was better," Booth said. "He retired and Betty and I opened up a studio here in July 2005." Operating out of a house in Riverview, the two opened a custom-built studio in Lake Brandon Park, in 2007, "and then the economy went into the toilet," Booth said.

 "Setting up a studio today would be very, very difficult," Booth said. "We're doing it, but it's very difficult. We've changed our whole focus in the industry to executive portraits and product commercial photography, such as anything you see on a Web site. We still do families, children and high school seniors, but we dropped our weddings. We shot our last wedding in November because there's no longer any profit in wedding photography. The average wedding here today is $1,500 to $2,500 and 10 years ago the average was $5,000."

Huth & Booth Photography, in the Millenium Plazaoff Pauls Drive, is open by appointment, Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 5pm.