Kodachrome 64. What can I say about you? You were sold to me by a clerk at the counter of a local London Drugs. You were the only slide film they had and I wanted to shoot slides that day. Who was I to argue? I should have bought another film; Anything but you.
I put you into my shiny new camera. You were to be the first real roll of film through it. Camera, meet Kodachrome 64. I shot you.
This was the first real photo on the roll. I couldn’t be happier with using you in my camera. You disappointed me though. After I finished you, I tried to get you processed but no lab in the city would have you. The pro labs rejected you, and so did I for a time. You had to be shipped out to one of 2 places in the world which process Kodachrome. I sent you to Texas, to Dwayne’s Photo. I was angry at you, but it wasn’t your fault. Nobody loved you anymore.
As a side note: Kodachrome is not an E-6 slide film. It’s K-14, which means that during processing, they put in the colour dyes necessary for retrieving colour from the film. This is, essentially, the same process used when making E-6 slide film or any colour film. In essence, they make colour film when they process. No wonder no one processes Kodachrome!
It was an interesting day for taking to the street. Friendly people were out and about, doing their own thing. I was spotted though. A man with a Canon 50/1.2 L lens spotted me from a distance and we made eye contact.
An interesting man with some interesting photographic hobbies such as setting up his darkroom to do 4×5 feet prints. FEET! That’s HUGE! The man needs a rangefinder as well. Seeing his preferrence for fast lenses, he needs a 50/1.0 in M mount. Hurr. His friend whom he was standing with was speaking of taking photos from an airplane, strapped to the floor with his head and camera sticking out the open bay doors, soaring over volcanos for those wonderfully scary lava shots.
People let down their guard for the briefest of moments, and I’m glad I have a responsive camera to capture those moments. That’s what it’s all about, right? Capturing moments? Ah.. Kodachrome, you are pretty at times.
Yes, yes.. stare at the man with the 50/1.2. Pay no attention to me. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your world.
Incidentally, Kodachrome 64 is rather strange when underexposed. Now, the slides project beautifully when underexposed but when scanned.. Anyways, Dwayne’s photo did the scanning for me since I don’t have a film scanner. I’ve also heard that Kodachrome is notoriously difficult to scan even with the best of equipment so I guess I shouldn’t be disappointed. Here are a few shots that were underexposed, from slightly to greatly.
Now for the.. more wildly underexposed photos. They are very dreamy and saturated, which isn’t a bad thing at all!
Bright, bright colours. Rather interesting.
The above photo is just the dreamiest shot ever. Feels like I’m floating in a dream. It’s rather interesting though, because I exposed for skin tones to take a photo of the flowers and waited for these two to pass into the shot. Apparently I judged the light a little brighter than I had expected, or rather the time it took for them to walk into my shot was long enough for the sun to set a bit more.
I leave you with this: Kodachrome 64 produces beautiful slides which project vividly and I will never shoot it again. I’m impatient. I don’t like sending out film to be processed only to recieve it a month and a half later. I should really just stick to black and white.
