Tag Archives: Kodachrome

how to make good pictures in 1936

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. 1936, what a great year! Mind you, I wasn’t around back then, but my dad upgraded his picture taking skills to a Kodak Junior Six-20. Kodak had reached the pinnacle of the photographic industry by mid last century – … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on how to make good pictures in 1936

it’s home to print we go …

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. For about the last half of the last century I enjoyed doing darkroom work and processing of both negatives and prints. In the 1960s and 70s, this included colour processing using paper and chemistry of the day. And beginning … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on it’s home to print we go …

colour home movies in 1929

Posted on September 2, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Even today, we use ways to separate and re-combine primary colours to create realistic viewable colour images, be they prints, computer screens, smartphones, or TV. The concept itself is over a century and a half old. James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on colour home movies in 1929

a hint to the future of colour photography

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. In February 1931, the magazine Science and Invention had this brief note on the status of a new colour process taken on by Kodak. It modestly states, “These processes are said to be as simple as those involved in … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on a hint to the future of colour photography

remember Kodachrome?

Posted on June 22, 2019 by Robert

Toronto. It’s been a decade now since Kodak shut down the Kodachrome film line and nearly nine years since the last Kodachrome processing facility closed.  In its glory days, people used Kodachrome for their best work. It was contrasty, slow, … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on remember Kodachrome?

50 ways to lose a lover

Posted on June 8, 2019 by Robert

Toronto. In the 1950s the marketeers at the camera companies struggled to make their products stand out from the herd. No item was too tiny to be touted as the biggest improvement ever in photography. Some changes where indeed useful, … Continue reading →

Posted in processes | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on 50 ways to lose a lover

sliding into focus

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Robert

Toronto. As we casually view the colour images on front of our smartphones, we may forget the long torturous route taken from crude monochrome glass slides projected on a sheet or screen in a darkened room to 35mm or 2×2 … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on sliding into focus

International Radio Corporation

Posted on December 18, 2018 by Robert

Toronto. In the 1930s, a small company in Ann Arbor, Michigan began manufacture of the latest, greatest thing – home radios. Their fresh egg was using Bakelite plastic for cabinets instead of expensive wood or metal cabinets. Their less expensive … Continue reading →

Posted in camera | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on International Radio Corporation

a colourful book

Posted on December 16, 2018 by Robert

Toronto. It was the 1970s and photography was growing in popularity with magazines, books, chemicals, printing paper, retailers, camera collecting societies, galleries, and studios popping up everywhere. In March of 1972, I stopped by the local Classics bookshop in Montreal … Continue reading →

Posted in book | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on a colourful book

Ansco camera ad in 1953

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Robert

Toronto. Ah! Ansco. This ad appeared in 1953, about 25 years before Ansco became GAF (it was a subsidiary of GAF since 1939).  Never strong up here, one bought Ansco to avoid the leader of good inexpensive cameras – Kodak. … Continue reading →

Posted in camera | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Ansco camera ad in 1953