Things I Miss

My niece turned me on to a website that features a collection of vintage photographs of all manner. The one above is from a collection of Kodachrome transparencies taken in the 1940's These images were made with slide film that measured 4X5 inches, a size big enough to capture light and color in quality that far surpasses the capabilities of most digital equipment available today.  Kodachrome was one of the first color films, being released in 1935.  It went out of production in 2009 and the last lab able to process the film closed shop in 2010.

Looking at the photo above tells the viewer a lot about both a film type and an America that no longer exists. This photo was certainly posed. The photographer, Alfred Palmer, was photographing workers at the Douglas Aircraft Plant in Long Beach, California in 1942 for the Office of War Information. The idea was to illustrate women at work in support of the war effort during World War II. Although probably hand selected for the shoot, the woman is a real production line worker. Many of these images include the notes identifying the worker, their job, their plant, and so forth.

The thing about the film is, just look at the color. This photograph predates Photoshop by 50+ years yet the film captures the texture of the clothing just as well as it conveys the thick smooth green finish on the lunch pail. Seeing this image done today one would simply pass it off as being a heavily manipulated digital image with a fair amount of post capture modifying.  And while this is a professionally set shot it is the lighting and the film, especially that big pane of Kodachrome, that make the image so rich, textural, and color saturated.

The thing about the worker is, just look at her style. If you look through a dozen or more of these images you see the same characteristics: Great fabrics, concern for appearance, at once practical and appealing-- industrial elegance if you will. A friend of mine recently wrote about this. She talked about how an older generation of women took seriously the need to maintain appearance. My parents were much the same. Church clothes, work clothes, school clothes, play clothes. By today's standards such concern outside of really special events seems needless. Casual has become almost slovenly. Careless has become cool.

While Kodachrome is gone there are still quite a few photographers in the world shooting film. They do so because it's what they know as well as for reasons of image quality. They are concerned that their work has a certain depth of character, a certain elegance-- just like those who still care and dress with an eye toward their appearance to others.