I shipped off my last rolls of Kodachrome to be processed today…

A 1977 roll of Kodachrome 25 with my Canon L1 and 50mm 1:1.4 lens

Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas needs to receive my four final rolls of Kodachrome by noon on Thursday in order to process them. I had two rolls of 64, one roll of 200, and one roll of 25 (!) that expired in 1977. I found the latter roll, unopened in its original box, in a camera bag of something I bought on eBay or Shopgoodwill or something a long time ago. I froze it and had it as a sort of collectible object, but in the Kodachrome panic of this last month, I said “fuck it” and shot it unceremoniously yesterday.

My Kodachrome shooting experience certainly went out with more of a whimper than a bang. I shot a couple of rolls of 64 in a Leica C3, a hate-it-or-hate-it-a-little-less 35mm autofocus camera. Something’s very off about the camera, and I ended up just rewinding the final roll in it before shooting it all because I couldn’t reliably get a shot. My wife said she thinks I might subject my cameras to excessive wear, and while I rejected that idea initially, I think she’s probably right. I certainly don’t coddle them.

I shot the 200 in a Yashica Electro 35 GTN, an excellent camera for positive film, but I was shooting during this blizzard we just had, so I had to keep adjusting the ASA in order to compensate for the white everywhere. And pictures of a snowstorm just aren’t that exciting, usually. I shot the roll of 25 (I wonder how many rolls of that Dwayne’s will process this month?) with a Canon L1 (ca. 1957). Again, the snowstorm didn’t help. I was stuck inside trying to convince my toddler to sit still enough for me to get some shots. I really wanted to find some trains or some other classic subject of that amazing film. Whatever. I waited too long.

Here are some of my favorite Kodachrome shots from past rolls (I’ll post results from the above rolls when they come back):