Kodachrome, a Leica and off-network imag(in)ing
This Project is about mobile imag(in)ing. It is also a practice-based project which includes my own imag(in)ing.
As discussed on the About and App pages, that imag(in)ing involves building a window that pulls in the distributed images and fragments from across the Live Web between now and 2012. That App is a visual practice. This is a window and a distributed image:
Similarly, my presence as collector is a visual practice.
But I want to go further. I want to imag(in)e off network. I want to photograph in a way that cannot be seen through that window, that cannot be part of the power-full governmental relations set in motion by network protocols.
This is not simply an analogue-digital divide. The issue is more fundamental. It is about what image, media, texts and practices are network-enabled/ready/dependent and which are not. Networked fragments are distributed – they can exist in multiple places even simultaneously. The same photograph – not a copy, the same digital code – can exist on a Facebook page, Flickr, TwitPic and a hard drive at home simultaneously. Networked fragments are fluid. That code image can be streamed, embedded and mashed-up with other code. It can be mosaic and montage 1 as part of a constellation of images, which in the case of this Project are arguably dialectical.
Their existence as digital is important in that it enables that position as code which facilitates that miscellaneousness 2 and fluidity but it is their existence as network fragments – with all the power implications of that position – that is crucial. It is the ways in which new power/knowledge relations are set in motion by their existence as miscellaneous, fluid images across networks that is the focus.
Any practice that seeks to step outside those relations must step outside the network, not just the digital.
Kodachrome
Kodachrome has an iconic position within photography. The chosen film of the first generation of colour street photographers like Joel Meyerowitz and of course William Eggleston, Kodachrome has a particular contrast and saturation that, like the secret ingredient in Coke, is jealously guarded. Kodachrome, unlike other colour slide films requires special processing by Kodak labs. Part alchemy, part myth, when Kodak announced that it was stopping making Kodachrome on June 22 2009 it did so as though saying goodbye to an old friend:
“Kodak Retires KODACHROME Film; Celebrates Life of Oldest Film Icon in its Portfolio. [...]
“KODACHROME Film is an iconic product and a testament to Kodak’s long and continuing leadership in imaging technology,” said Mary Jane Hellyar, President of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group. ” It was certainly a difficult decision to retire it, given its rich history. [...]
Among the well-known professional photographers who used KODACHROME Film is Steve McCurry, whose picture of a young Afghan girl captured the hearts of millions of people around the world as she peered hauntingly from the cover of National Geographic Magazine in 1985.
As part of a tribute to KODACHROME Film, Kodak will donate the last rolls of the film to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, which houses the world’s largest collection of cameras and related artifacts. McCurry will shoot one of those last rolls and the images will be donated to Eastman House.
“The early part of my career was dominated by KODACHROME Film, and I reached for that film to shoot some of my most memorable images,” said McCurry.[...]
For all of its magic, KODACHROME is a complex film to manufacture and an even more complex film to process. There is only one remaining photofinishing lab in the world – Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas – that processes KODACHROME Film, precisely because of the difficulty of processing. This lack of widespread processing availability, as well as the features of newer films introduced by Kodak over the years, has accelerated the decline of demand for KODACHROME Film.
During its run, KODACHROME Film filled a special niche in the annals of the imaging world. It was used to capture some of the best-known photographs in history, while also being the film of choice for family slide shows of the Baby Boom generation.
To celebrate the film’s storied history, Kodak has created a gallery of iconic images, including the Afghan girl and other McCurry photos, as well as others from professional photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman on its website:www.kodak.com/go/kodachrometribute. Special podcasts featuring McCurry and Guttman will also be featured on the website.
Kodak estimates that current supplies of KODACHROME Film will last until early this fall at the current sales pace. Dwayne’s Photo has indicated it will continue to offer processing for the film through 2010. Current KODACHROME Film users are encouraged to try other KODAK Films, such as KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME E100G and EKTAR 100 Film. These films both feature extremely fine grain.” 3
Here the spin of pushing photographers towards other products is the positioning of this film and the company as at the heart of photography, photographic and cultural history as well as a particular scopic regime.
Kodachrome is ‘film’ of course, analogue. But more than that, a Kodachrome slide is an object not merely because of its physical but also because of its discursive presence. It has aparticular position within photographic and visual discourse but also within real spaces and places. A Kodachrome, whether in a family shoebox or the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film is off-Net. It cannot be embedded, mashed-up or even linked-to 4.
To imag(in)e with Kodachrome is similarly to take a particular off-Net stand. Kodachromes are not deleted or overwritten, they can be destroyed but not reshot. Unlike a RAW file, it cannot be adjusted later for exposure or colour balance. Their histogram is frozen at the second of exposure and unless it is scanned or printed, that histogram remains inextricably tied to the object. The photographer’s decisions are final, inscribed in the object as definitively as geolocation is encode in an iPhone photograph.
And now, with Kodak having ceased production and its last remaining European lab in Switzerland stopping processing at the end of 2010, ‘Kodachrome’ takes on a new dimension, time. To shoot one of the rolls you have in the fridge is to use a limited resource. But the clock is ticking and not to do so is to lose an opportunity for imag(in)ing that is set to run out. ’2012′ will end. The event will happen and then their will be… ‘legacy’. ‘Kodachrome’ will end. It will become memory, myth with its objects as well as the image as legacy.
The Leica
If Kodachrome is the medium that defines a particular 35mm scopic regime, then the Leica is the technology. From Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank through to the street photographers of the 70s and on until large-format became the new practice, the Leica has been an icon and even a practice.
To use one, particularly the classic M2 and M3 models, was to engage in a particular practice and with a particular discourse of photography and seeing. The rangefinder’s bright line within the viewfinder, allowing the photographer to see what was outside the frame; the lack of light meter forcing an almost instinctual feeling for light and time as well as the weight of history combine to create a particular practice.
It is not the lightness and flexibility that makes the Leica different. As this Project is exploring, the mobile phone camera is lighter, more flexible and more ‘always on’. Like Kodachrome, the Leica is out-of-the-loop. Of course it is branded – arguably more heavily engaged with global brands and objectification than any other camera 5. Of course it works on a different time – 35mm film require development (which in the case of Kodachrome can be a few weeks). But where the 35mm Leica 6 is off-Net is that like Kodachrome it resists connection. It cannot ‘talk to’ other technologies or media. It cannot connect to networks or protocols. It may be a conversation piece but it cannot be part of a conversation.
Again it is not just that the Leica is analogue. This would have been important before the issue became not one of digital but one of network. Arguably an ‘offline’ digital camera or a different 35mm camera can assume a position of resistance to protocol and network power. But what these alternative technologies cannot add is the ideology of the Leica. To haev images ‘taken on an M2′ is to add those images to a history of imag(in)ing and seeing with power full implications. For this Project’s contributions to the imag(in)ing of 2012 to carry the label ‘taken with a Leica’ change the way of reading and, from my perspective, the way of seeing.
Photo imag(in)ing off-Net
I have 59 rolls of the last batch of Kodachrome. I will use these to take pictures of ‘2012′. Between October 2009 and October 2010. These fragments form part of this project but they will remain off-Net. They will be stored in archival slide boxes. They will not be scanned, printed or added to any Network. What will appear on the Net will be their shadows.
As each film is returned from the Kodak lab in Switzerland I will add their ’shadows’ to the distributed web on Flickr. I will create a text image that shadows each photograph. These word images (with the deliberate connotations of imagist and objectvist poetry as well as haiku and renga) will join the network of scopic fragments visualising and imag(in)ing 2012.
- Pensky (2004) ↩
- Weinberger (2007) ↩
- Kodak (2009) ↩
- Of course it can and has been made part of a collage or even sculpture but that too has a one-off presence in time and space. ↩
- Although of course Cannon in particular is heavily involved in building a brand around its products and practices, no more so than in terms of the Olympics ↩
- Of course not the newer digital Leica rangefinders ↩
