Kodachrome. If you know what that even really is then you are officially old.
Knowing that it is the name of some ancient song by some geezers named Simon & Garfunkel doesn’t count. Being able to recall that pungent odor when you opened the film canister or pouch means you are truly a living fossil. Yes, there was a time when phones were just phones and couldn’t take pictures and cameras were just cameras and required actual film to create an image.
Cameras used to come in all shapes and sizes and cost anything from a few bucks to as much as you wanted to spend. There was a time when taking a photo actually involved zero electricity. It was all gears, glass and springs. The energy needed to produce the image either came 93 million miles from the sun or some other closer man-made light source. Later on, all kinds of powerful flash devices were developed. If you remember cameras that had these cool little flashcubes that rotated around on the top of your camera then you are probably already receiving all kinds of junk mail from AARP.
The other big difference between cameras from the past versus today is that even the cheapest cameras were still expensive to use because not only did you have to buy the film but you had to pay to have it developed. And unlike today’s Smartphone cameras that can zip off a hundred images in just a few seconds, we had to pick our shots judiciously. Film rolls came in three general sizes: 12, 24 or 36 exposures.
The old Instamatics of the 1970s used special idiot-proof cartridges that you could pop in. The more deluxe 35mm cameras had to have the actual roll of film loaded into them by hand. Either way, you were committed to that particular film type and speed until you finished the roll. There was no way to switch the contrasts and colors like today’s digital wizardry.
Today, we can snap a selfie and instantly see how it turned out and then tweak it a million different ways to make ourselves look thinner or have better-looking skin or even fill in missing teeth.
In the old filmy days, you took the pictures and then had to take the rolls of film somewhere to have them developed. If you had the money and were in a super rush you might be able to get 1-hour processing. Otherwise, you had to wait a few days, or if you were really cheap you’d send it off by snail mail to be processed. The bad thing was you never knew what the end result was going to look like. You could spend a small fortune on a trip to Europe and take hundreds of pictures. Once you finally got home you’d have the film processed, only to find out that your camera settings were all wrong or that everything was out of focus.
How many memories of proms and birthdays were lost to operator error or just running out of film?
The one exception to the time delay problem was the eternally stylish Polaroid Camera. These film cameras provided almost instant images. That is after a minute or so of impatient fanning of the picture card that would shoot out of the front of the camera. While Polaroids were almost real-time, they were very expensive to use and were generally only good for close-ups of stationary objects. That is probably why they were the tool of choice for investigators documenting murder scenes.
While using actual photographic film had a sense of history and romance to it, there is no doubt the technology of our current digital cameras has made the art of image collection and transformation something within the grasp of anyone who has a smartphone, and the cool thing is that the phone doesn’t even need to be connected to the wall anymore. Imagine that.
Click here to read more of the August issue of Idaho Falls Magazine.