Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to take pictures. Like the pros. Used to cut out images from the major magazines, and literally tape them to my bedroom wall as a teenager growing up on the NJ Shore. I’d also collect these clippings in binders and committed to memory the name photographers of the day.
When I began seriously shooting slide film back in the early 80’s, Kodachrome was an automatic requirement, just like the big boys. I’ve run a lot of transparency films through my Nikons and Leica through the years, and nothing matched the consistency, tonal range, contrast and of course flesh tones that Kodachrome film stock provided. For me, Kodachrome Professional 64 (PKR-64) was the standard when I traveled internationally. With Kodak’s announcement yesterday that they’re discontinuing the film, it surely marks the end of an era for those of us that know.
Yea, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, “I’ve always wanted to “take” pictures. Kodachrome “made” me a photographer… -cg.
10:45PM: More on my Kodachrome images:
After quickly producing the images of my mounted & unmounted archived Kodachrome slides earlier this morning, I was quite pleased to see that my editorial stock agency, THE IMAGE WORKS posted the files within the hour on their main search page. Nice work, guys. Now let’s hope for a few “bites” from their clients on any of these images. -cg.
Chet Gordon resides in the lower Hudson Valley region of New York. A photojournalist for more than 25 years, he recently worked as Westchester Magazine's first photo editor, and previously was a staff photographer at four NYC metro area newspapers. He was also a photo editor at the NY Daily News for 5 years. His work has appeared in The New York Times, International Herald-Tribune, USA Today, MailOnline (UK), Army Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Popular Photography magazines, among others. He is a career member of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA), and a former board member of the NY Press Photographer’s Association (NYPPA). He served honorably as a U.S. Marine in the mid-1980's, including 2+ years stationed on Okinawa, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia. A longtime volunteer and travel enthusiast, he accompanies several humanitarian aid clients on their international disaster relief and medical missions. Since 1997, he's worked in several African countries, the Middle East, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti, the Russian Federation, and Thailand. He routinely mentors young photographers looking to break into the industry and vacations in Bermuda and Kenya.
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