When I was in college, I bought my very first single lens reflex (SLR) camera.  I chose a Minolta model as it had a cool double-exposure button that would allow me to easily expose two photographs on top of one another.  I was forever going around taking photographs of trees with people’s faces superimposed.

It was also the largest financial decision I had ever made, a whopping $300!  I can recall throwing up having spent so much money in a single purchase.

My two college roommates, Wayne Gorman and “Gig” Garn, also bought new SLR cameras.  However,  they both went with a Canon model.

We were all three enrolled at a small liberal arts college in central Michigan called John Wesley College.  The school had a travel study program which would put the whole student body in Europe each year for a month.  After my first thirty day trip, I realized that I needed a serious camera and thus the photography bug became a permanent part of my life.

I took photographs for the school yearbook, set up a darkroom to develop photographs, and generally became “Joe Photo”.

It was during this experience in the mid-70s that my love affair for Kodachrome slide film began.  There was absolutely nothing that could produce the beautifully saturated colors of Kodachrome slide film.

Yesterday, Kodak produced the very last roll of Kodachrome film (New York Times Article).   The digital age had long since driven serious photographers away from film and I suppose the small crowd of sentimentalist photographers just didn’t produce enough business for Kodak to continue the line.

Speak Up!  Do you have a Kodachrome story?  Share it below in the comments section.

In memory of the hundreds of rolls of Kodachrome that I have shot over the years, here’s Simon and Garfunkel lamenting their own Kodachrome loss (1981 vintage):