Kodak moments

Oct 07, 2011

Till a few years ago the name Kodak was synonymous with photographs, from the cameras that took them to the films that went in them and the labs that developed them. The news that the legendary company is now teetering on the verge of collapse shows how technology can mercilessly sweep away everything in its path. The brutal laws of evolution will ensure that the old gives way to the new, like the LP lost out to the CD, and now the CD itself is slowly dying as MP3 and other digital formats become universal. And does anyone even remember the videotape any more?
Photography, too, has changed. Today, everyone who has even the most basic of cellphones is a photographer. No longer do we need expensive equipment or cumbersome rolls of film; raise your mobile phone and press a button and you have an image. Never mind if it is not art; photography is now truly democratic and available to the masses. Kodak couldn’t move with the times and is facing extinction.
There will be a small pang though if it eventually passes away. The famous yellow sign visible everywhere was quite comforting. It was where you gave in your pictures to develop and waited eagerly to see how they had turned out. Digital is quicker and allows you to correct your mistakes, but takes away the element of surprise. There is a twinge of sadness at the fading of an era, but it’s comforting to know that those Kodak moments will never fade from our albums.

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