Kodachrome Color Nostalgia

Lately I’ve been a bit obsessed about photography. I’ve been learning both the technical and artistic side of it and trying to find what subjects interest me. This process has led me to seek out the authors of the works that have caught my eye (seeing Paola work reminds me to seek out references). Lately I’ve been fascinated by photos with bright saturated colors.

I was surprised to learn that a handful of art photographers were treating color film as an artistic endeavor as far back as the ‘40s and ’50s. I was impressed to learn that consumer color film even existed that long ago. Just like the Wizard of Oz, I thought everything before the ’70s must have been in black and white. Interestingly, these artists’ color work wasn’t appreciated artistically until color became more mainstream in the art world at the end of the ’70s.

William Eggleston. Ernst Haas. Garry Winogrand. These famous photographers were working in that era in vivid color using Kodakchrome slide film. Seeing their color work turns my mental image of that era on its head. Seeing it in larger-than-life color makes the ‘50s and ‘60s seem closer to today.

The other day I happened on a photo on the corner of 3rd Avenue and East 31st Street. Many of the places these photographers captured are in New York, even near our place.

Many of their images were made more lifelike through dye-transfer printing, usually used in the advertising industry. The process, which was akin to screen printing, converted the images to black and white and CMYK color and combined all together to create the final print.

This particular process is a dying art, as Kodak has discontinued Kodachrome film, its development process, and the chemicals necessary for dye transfer prints over the years. Any new prints are made by the few remaining specialists.

The Kodachrome look lives on in positive film camera presets (e.g., on my Ricoh GR IIIx), Instagram filters, and even in the saturated aesthetic of iPhone photos.

Nostalgia or not, our era is a color era. Perhaps when we look back at today’s photos, things will be flipped and we’ll associate this era with the bright colors of camera phones, then be fascinated by those that captured the moments of today in black and white.