PARSONS, Kan., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The world of photography was set to turn a corner Thursday as a small shop in Kansas scraps the last Kodachrome film processor still in operation.
Digital photography literally created a race to Parsons, Kan., by pushing film processing into a smaller and smaller corner over the years, The New York Times reported.
This week Dwayne's Photo, the small shop in Parsons, became a dramatic scene of desperate measures as those with film left to process raced to beat the deadline before the window of opportunity for Kodachrome development closed.
Arriving at the shop's doorstep this week was Jim DeNike, a railroad worker from Arkansas who paid $15,798 to have 50,000 slides of trains developed.
He said he borrowed money from his father's retirement account to pay the bill.
The film immortalized by songwriter Paul Simon, who sang, "Momma, don't take my Kodachrome away," was expensive to process, but highly admired for its deep, colorful tones. It gave rise to millions of family slide shows of vacations and weddings. For 75 years, it brought the packaged tour of the pyramids home under the universal cue of "Someone get the lights."
"It's more than a film, it's a pop culture icon. If you were in the post-war baby boom, it was the color film, no doubt about it," said Todd Gustavson, a curator from the George Eastman House, a photography museum in Rochester, N.Y.
