From the Associated Press:
Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away.
The Eastman Kodak Co. (EK, News) announced Monday it’s retiring its oldest film stock because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.
The world’s first commercially successful color film, immortalized in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak’s portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company’s total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.
Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.
Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away! I’ll confess that I haven’t shot with Kodachrome in several years but I’ve taken hundreds of photos with it over the years, everything from still life to nudes and I’m sad to see it go.