The End of an Era: Steve McCurry and the Final Roll of Kodachrome Film
In 2009, when Kodak announced that production of Kodachrome film would be coming to an end, legendary photographer Steve McCurry saw an opportunity, and asked if the company would give him the final roll. Given his reputation and the many famed photographs he’s taken on Kodachrome, it’s no surprise Kodak said yes.
As a tribute to this final roll, a crew from National Geographic decided to follow McCurry and document the momentous last 36 frames that would ever be shot on that film.
Are You Still Making These 10 Photography Clichés?
Photography is subjective, and people’s opinions on what’s cliché and what’s not is entirely up to them. Everything in moderation is the key to avoiding cliche photos, as you can get away with doing certain things a few times before it becomes boring and repetitive. If you’re new to photography, then avoiding the list of cliches below will help you to avoid taking photos that may well be dismissed as amateur.
Skate This: Recycled Skateboard Sculptures
Although unseen, each of Haroshi’s statues contains an embedded metal object that was once part of a working skateboard. Taken from his collection of broken skateboard parts, the chosen metal piece represents the “soul” of the statue. In many cases the metal piece is one broken from a skateboard during the previous owner’s failed “Big Attempt.”
The 12 Most Difficult to Visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Many World Heritage Sites are easy to visit (Statue of Liberty, Paris, Rome, Westminster Abbey). However, some are extremely difficult to visit and require a determined effort to get there. There are several sites I’ve attempted to reach but failed (I’m looking at you Archaeological Sites of Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn in Oman).
It would probably take a lifetime of travel and millions of dollars to seriously attempt to visit every single one on Earth.
Big Data is different, of course. Those Day in the Life books happened at a time when Kodak bestrode the world of photography, a mighty colossus, quite evidently unaware of its impending doom. It was the largesse of Kodak and Ray DeMoulin, the VP with a love of photography and access to cash, that fueled the efforts that assembled 100 photogs and probably an equivalent number of support personnel in far flung places. You need deep pocketed sponsors indeed to fly, house, and feed a gaggle of photojournalists, let alone produce the logistics needed for them to shoot. Big Data, of course shot digitally, is sort of a cousin of those original efforts. Back then, the point was some nice looking pictures. In this book, the idea, the theme, is paramount. Hence the pictures are more assignment driven, and there is more explanatory text, all combined to explain the way big, crunching machines chew through our lives, for better or for worse. It was not uncommon, at Day in the Life projects, given the headstrong participants, most of whom had long established histories of authority issues, to completely eschew the given assignment and just go find something to shoot.
