The End of Kodachrome

So December is the last month you will be able get your old Kodachrome film processed by Dwayne's in Kansas. In honor of the amazing film, I've created a Flickr pool for you to upload your old slides and related Kodachrome memorabilia:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1536467@N24/

I'd love to see what you've got. Let's enjoy this final month of beautiful color!

Also, if you've got some old Kodachrome film, get it out and shoot it. You've got until December 30 to get it to Dwayne's. I've got five rolls I'm gonna try to burn through.

New Adventures in Expired Film

Polaroid film is getting rarer and rarer by the day, even the 600 film thats two years expired is going for $40-$50 bones a pack. The new stuff by the Impossible Project is great and I'm really glad they're keeping the fire on instant film, but nothing compares to the formula and whatever crazy earth-killing chemicals Mr. Land used in his original films.

But what's rarer than all that is this pack of Polaroid 691 film for colorgraph overhead projection, as it says on the pack. Go back with me to the days before powerpoint and scanning stuff in and hastily throwing them together in a word doc for your next pitch and journey back to the mid-90's or earlier. With this film and your great overhead projector, you could photograph all your great talking points and really wow the room with full-color slides. I wonder what the pitch success rate was with this film, or if many folks used it. This box I got on ebay for a tidy sum expired in 1997 and the sticker on the back says they were discontinuing this film as of '98.

I've been sitting on this film for a few months now, waiting for something great to photograph that would seem worthy of its unique, possibly last-pack-on-the-earth greatness. After a while I just couldn't wait any longer and got the itch to load it up in my Land Camera Automatic 100 and fire away. Below is the first shot of some prairie restoration at North Mississippi Regional Park near my house on the northside of Minneapolis. It looks like the emulsion is already starting to dry up, but we'll see how the rest of the pack goes. It's hard to decide what to shoot when you know that these are the only 8 shots you're every going to get. If you've got any ideas, send them my way.

Thus, this is the great film-shooters dilemma. We have these great expired Polaroid films and want to save them for eternity, but if we wait too long, they'll just dry up and be unusable, their great potential never realized. Stay tuned, I'll post what becomes of the rest of the pack both here and on my Flickr page.

Collage Series for The Clover

I created a series of five collages for my work’s internal publication, The Clover. A lucky five received one of the originals, while the rest received a copy of one of the collages.

I also sized them as a wallpaper for your iPhone that you can download from my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/austingullixson/sets/72157625120361684/

Kodak Bullet

I recently acquired yet another camera on ebay. I know, big shock there. But this one is slightly different from some of the other ones, and I was sold immediately on the cool 1930's bakelite design. Here's a scan of the negatives I developed last night from the first roll of 127 film. You can still get film for 127 cameras from any of the major photo shops on the web. I got mine from Freestyle Photo for about $7 a roll. They also had some infrared film for 127 cameras on clearance, so of course I got some of that, too.

Now, this camera has a cool screw-out lens that you're supposed to screw all the way out till it clicks, which I learned after I shot the first roll. Hence the funny cut-offs on the corners. I still kinda dig them though. I was kinda surprised at how exposed they got though, considering the film is only 100 speed. Perhaps the shutter isn't as fast as it once was in those crazy Bullet days of the '30's.

Hidden treasures

Buying old cameras sometimes has hidden bonus treasures that normally would have long since been discarded. But in a recent thrift store find, along with bonus flash cubes and the nice rainbow one-step itself, is this nice piece of paper ephemera from a different time. It's only purpose was to inform the consumer how to stow all of their great Polaroid products in this tiny black sack. I'm guessing most of these were thrown out, but I'm thankful someone kept this little gem and I was lucky enough to come into possession of it. And now I share it with you. I love seeing "Printed in USA" on old stuff. We really used to produce some great products. Thanks, Meg for rescuing this and so many other great treasures from the dust bin.

Polaroid AutoProcessor 35mm

I picked up this Polaroid AutoProcessor for 35mm the other day on ebay. Polaroid decided to expand their line of instant films to 35mm slide film sometime in the 80's I believe and from what I've read, some folks really liked the results but it never caught on. I really dig the packaging. Still feels really fresh and smart.

I'll let you know if any of it turns out. I shot the roll of 35mm color slide film that came with it. I'm guessing the funny little pack of processing goo is no longer good, but I enjoy going on these vintage film journeys.

RIP, Polaroid 35mm processing pack. It must have been great trying out all this stuff 30 years ago when it was fresh. I'll keep looking on ebay for more film, but it looks like its pretty hard to come by.

Test Print

Normally I don't post my test sheets I make in the darkroom to determine proper exposure times, but there's something about the rhythm of this one that I like and just had to share.

Kodak Vigilant Junior Six-20

I was just gifted a couple cameras from an old friend (Thanks, Bart!) and the next few posts I'll show you a closer look at them. First up is the beautiful Kodak Vigilant Junior Six-20 that is in amazing shape, both camera and box. It also has a nice manual with some great layouts in it.

By the looks of the cover, this camera was aimed at the younger crowd. The Junior designation on a lot of Kodak cameras usually meant that it was the smaller version of that camera. This works out good for us because the 620 film size is easy to adapt a roll of 120 to if you've got the old spools around. 

Another gem from the inside talking about focal length and apertures.

Next step, I'll roll some 120 onto the 620 spools and shoot and develop and post some results here. Looks like you get a pretty big negative, almost 6x9!

Kodaguide

A friend recently gave me a camera and it had this beautiful guide in it for determining exposure and shutter speed on various types of Kodak films. I really love the old stuff like this with great illustrations and colors and the way it was printed. Something like this is rarely done in our digital printing world. And for only 20 cents! It would cost a fortune to produce something this great now. There's some nice graphics and stuff on the inside and back that I'll post later.

Poster for Wheeler

I like to do a little work on the side for a local mpls band called wheeler. here's the latest poster I've been working on the last few days. I like to incorporate my collages into things whenever I can.

Film Rescue

I was over at National Camera today downtown and they clued me in to this great site here:

https://www.filmrescue.com/index.html

that will process your old films for you. Any old films. I was checking out their site and they seem like pretty good people to work with. I came across some old 126 film the other day and want to shoot it but the problem always lies in where am I going to get it developed. Stay tuned and I will get the roll shot and developed by these fine folks and post the results here on FBD.

All for now, dear readers.

First Post!

A blog about photography, art, found things, and other things I'm fascinated by. Stay tuned!