Posted on 10/03/2011 9:26:07 AM PDT by shortstop
My work is done.
Those words were some of the last penned by George Eastman. He included them in his suicide note.
They mark an ignoble end to a noble life, the leave taking of a truly great man.
The same words could now be said for the company he left behind.
My work is done.
For all intents and purposes, the Eastman Kodak Company is through. It has been mismanaged financially, technologically and competitively. For 20 years, its leaders have foolishly spent down the patrimony of a century’s prosperity. One of America’s bedrock brands is about to disappear, the Kodak moment has passed.
It is as wrong as suicide, and, like suicide, is the result of horrifically poor decisions, a fatal wound of self-infliction.
But George Eastman is not how he died, and the Eastman Kodak Company is not how it is being killed. Though the ends be needless and premature, they must not be allowed to overshadow the greatness that came before.
History testifies of the greatness of George Eastman.
It must also bear witness of the greatness of Kodak.
Few companies have done so much good for so many people, or defined and lifted so profoundly the spirit of a nation and perhaps the world. It is impossible to understand the 20th Century without recognizing the role of the Eastman Kodak Company.
Kodak served mankind through entertainment, science, national defense and the stockpiling of family memories.
Kodak took us to the top of Mount Suribachi and to the Sea of Tranquility. It introduced us to the merry old Land of Oz and to stars from Charlie Chaplin to John Wayne, and Elizabeth Taylor to Tom Hanks.
It showed us the shot that killed President Kennedy, and his brother bleeding out on a kitchen floor, and a fallen Martin Luther King Jr. on the hard balcony of a Memphis motel.
When that sailor kissed the nurse, and when the spy planes saw missiles in Cuba, Kodak was the eyes of a nation. From the deck of the Missouri to the grandeur of Monument Valley, Kodak took us there. Virtually every significant image of the 20th Century is a gift to posterity from the Eastman Kodak Company.
In an era of easy digital photography, when we can take a picture of anything at any time, we cannot imagine what life was like before George Eastman brought photography to people. Yes, there were photographers, and for relatively large sums of money they would take stilted pictures in studios and formal settings.
But most people couldn’t afford photographs, and so all they had to remember distant loved ones, or earlier times of their lives, was memory. Children could not know what their parents had looked like as young people, grandparents far away might never learn what their grandchildren looked like.
Eastman Kodak allowed memory to move from the uncertainty of recollection, to the permanence of a photograph.
But it wasn’t just people whose features were savable; it was events, the sacred and precious times that families cherish. The Kodak moment, was humanity’s moment. It was that place in time where there is joy, where life has its ultimate purpose.
From the earliest round Brownie pictures, to the squares of 126 and the rectangles of 35mm, Kodak let the fleeting moments of birthdays and weddings, picnics and parties, be preserved and saved. It allowed for the creation of the most egalitarian art form. Lovers could take one another’s pictures, children were photographed walking out the door on the first day of school, the person releasing the shutter decided what was worth recording, and hundreds of millions of such decisions were made.
And for centuries to come, those long dead will smile and dance and communicate to their unborn progeny. Family history will be not only names on paper, but smiles on faces.
Thanks to Kodak.
The same Kodak that served is in space and on countless battlefields. This company went to war for the United States and played an important part in surveillance and reconnaissance. It also went to the moon and everywhere in between.
All while generating a cash flow that employed countless thousands of salt-of-the-earth people, and which allowed the company’s founder to engage in some of the most generous philanthropy in America’s history. Not just in Kodak’s home city of Rochester, New York, but in Tuskegee and London, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He bankrolled two historically black colleges, fixed the teeth of Europe’s poor, and quietly did good wherever he could.
And Kodak made that possible.
While doing good, Kodak did very well.
And all the Kodakers over all the years are essential parts of that monumental legacy. They prospered a great company, but they – with that company – blessed the world.
That is what we should remember about the Eastman Kodak Company.
Like its founder, we should remember how it lived, not how it died.
My work is done.
Perhaps that is true of Kodak.
If it is, we should be grateful that such a company ever existed. We should rejoice in and show respect for that existence.
History will forget the small men who have scuttled this company.
But history will never forget Kodak.
You know, if the dopes at Kodak would have started selling digital cameras that reproduced the Kodachrome look, they would be still in business. Maybe a digital Kodachrome camera/printer system that could have saved them.
From reading some of the others on this thread that had dealt with Kodaks corporate structure, I bet the idea never crossed their minds.
People always would gripe about the quality of enlargements from 110 negatives, regardless of the camera. For standard prints, it was okay.
Personally, I’ve been boycotting them ever since they went so militantly pro-homosexual.
One of my brother’s B-school assignments was to come up with a product pitch to a semi-local company (he went to Cornell). His group was assigned Kodak, and the group basically suggested they move into digital photography, and backed it up with market research data and technology innovation data.
Kodak literally laughed at them. I think it was around 1995 or 1996.
I’ll have to share this story with him.
Check into the Epson Perfection V600 scanner. I have the older model V500 and love it. It scans high resolution (the higher the resolution the longer the scan time). It works like a dream. I’ve scanned in thousands of slides for myself and others over the past few years.
In my day I bought a figurative ton of Kodak film and spent an almost literal ton of money on processing. Moving up to Nikon digital from 35mm has allowed me to keep most of that money. The relegation of Kodak film to at best a niche market was inevitable. I wish Kodak cameras and perhaps paper could have adapted better. Some companies never figure it out.
I was there then. In one meeting they explained they were of course considering the switch to digital, but retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak did to any significant degree (good for business, you see) so, considering the retailers their customers, they gave the customers what they wanted. ...forgetting, of course, who actually took the pictures, and why they used film - or not, and soon “not” in huge percentages.
“Look for an Obama Bailout.”
Nope. Kodak is non-union.
One of the all-time great products in American history. It has an archival life of over 100 years, if stored in the dark.
Kodak gave the last roll of Kodachrome to photojournalist Steve McCurry - the man famous for his National Geographic photo of the blue-eyed Afghan girl in the refugee camp.
Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kansas, was the last lab to process Kodachrome. It ran its last roll in December 2010.
When you switched to Fuji, I'll bet you shot Velvia 50 at 40 or 32 for cleaner whites and saturated colors. I never got good skin tones with Fuji.
When my Mom died I found numerous undeveloped rolls of Kodak film: 110, 120, 126 and 8 mm home movie film. I haven’t been able to find anyone who will develop these. Any ideas?
FUJI FILM = Kodak films on LSD and steroids.
I am sad to hear that they are on the skids. I have used their EasyShare cameras and software and printers for about 7 years. Terrific and easy to use products. Great customer service too.
“One of my brother’s B-school assignments was to come up with a product pitch to a semi-local company (he went to Cornell). His group was assigned Kodak, and the group basically suggested they move into digital photography, and backed it up with market research data and technology innovation data.
Kodak literally laughed at them. I think it was around 1995 or 1996.
I’ll have to share this story with him.”
Just an FYI: Kodak INVENTED digital photography. It was a Kodak engineer who invented, designed and built the first digital camera in 1975.
I'm betting after Jan 013, he'll either be a commentator on MSNBC, or if he's deported as an illegal alien, run for president of Kenya.
Kodachrome and the E4 Development kit was a god send to the home developer.
Kodak should have entered the digital negative scanning market. There are many who have shot with negatives for years and would like a professional quality negative scanner for medium format film that would compete with the few now available.
Don’t be the turd in the punchbowl, Paleo.
Eastman, as the article says, gave us great memories, from Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima to simple family albums. I have albums going back to my grandfather, thanks to Eastman.
Good for Eastman and the memories they silver-plated onto photo paper.
And if you’re planning to come back at me with some tirade, I will ignore you.
True. Great post - thanks.
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