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Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

Give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah

I got a Nikon camera

I love to take a photograph

So mama don't take my Kodachrome away...

 

- from Kodachrome by Paul Simon ( selected lyrics )

 

 

 

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Eastman Kodak Co. said Monday that it’s retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.

 

Kodachrome, the world’s first commercially successful color film, was immortalized in song by Paul Simon and spent 74 years in Kodak’s portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity. Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company’s total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.

 

Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it persuaded Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, outgoing president of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.

 

“Kodachrome is particularly difficult (to retire) because it really has become kind of an icon,” Hellyar said.

 

 

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